I'm from western Washington State, so I hadn't seen desert next to ocean before coming to Mexico first a few years ago. It still fascinates me. I painted from a dirt road in the hot sun as cars occasionally whipped past, throwing up clouds of dust. An amiable fellow up the road took pity and brought me a glass of ice water.

I had a bad start. The scrub was cool and so were the shadows -- making the painting far cooler than was the scene -- but then realized I had used cool blue-grays instead of the actual burgundy of the scrub. I was painting from recent scenes I had painted that were in my head, not in front of me!  I had the values, but not the color or temperature of the scrub. I reworked the painting and was grateful I was working in oils so that I could.