Since the very cold spell we've been experiencing in New York the last few weeks, I've been looking back at paintings I started on location this summer and even finding a couple of paintings I never finished from a couple of years ago. Suddenly, I saw their potential and decided to get back to work on them and to see whether I could complete them. In the case of the painting I've pictured here, which I'm calling Rail to Lamy, I had abandoned it after I brought it home and didn't think I would ever go back to it.

One thing I've learned in recent years and that's that I shouldn't throw out unfinished paintings because I never know when I will see something in them that a while back I couldn't detect.

Maybe in the case of this painting, it was that I could feel and remember the heat of that day and could enjoy trying to enhance and finish that scene and bask in the memory of that day. As it is, I've been hibernating inside and trying to stay out of the cold as much as possible. Finishing up summer paintings seems just the thing to do at this time of year.