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Inspiration is such a tricky thing.  It usually starts me on one path, but I often end up in an entirely different place than I first imagined.

"Last of the Plums" is a perfect example.

When I was walking on a Sept. day, I noticed the first sign of seasonal change.  The top of a Japanese maple was just starting to turn red while overall, the tree was still green.  I always love those slipping-in-between states and thought that would be a nice subject for a painting.

I was also mystified by how I live in a world of greens, love green, but hardly ever paint with it.  I mean the basic green-green, straight from the crayon box.  I'm plenty happy to dip into muddy olives or yellowy greens.  Deep bluey greens from the ocean thrill me.  But your basic Kelly green--never touch it.

So I started "Plums" with layers of green and a bit of red in mind.  I wanted to capture that early changing of the seasons and the first disappearance of all that green.

I built up layers of grass greens, Kelly greens, and emerald greens and quickly remembered why I don't paint with them.  They looked way too garish.

So I started graying them down and felt much more comfortable as I moved towards olives.

The pops of red with all the green were just too Christmasy, so those morphed into a rich, rusty orange.

Now the painting was too cluttered and needed to breathe.  I began opening up areas with neutrals.

It needed a dark value and the deep, deep plum was the perfect compliment.

The title came to me right when I looked at the finished painting--"End of the Plums."

It's funny that my final painting looked nothing like that initial spark of inspiration of a frosting of red on a green tree.  But it ended up capturing the shifting of seasons that I first had in mind.

I don't fight it.  As long as inspiration gets me going, I don't really care where I end up.