Golden Haze

When the California hills decide to shower you with magnificent blooms, you don't ask why — you just run and grab photos and soak up inspiration. This happened to me as I was traveling through the Mojave Desert when a sweet thunderstorm had touched a small area the day before and suddenly, these flowers appeared. I had to stop and take as many photos as I could. This is the result of many hours of agonizing over all the delicious options I came away with. (I couldn't stop to paint because I was on a schedule for meeting a client.) After half a dozen different attempts, I settled on this one. Because the local colors were so strong, I had really work the color palette so it didn't look like a cartoon.