This was quickly painted on site so it could be part of a featured stop on one of the field trips for the 6th Biennial Shortleaf Pine Conference. I arrived at the appointed location three hours before the group did and since it was my first visit to Nat Mountain I went with whatever drew my attention first. That happened to be these strongly shaded, curved and angled pine trunks, backed by a blue, blue sky. I had assumed they were all shortleaf (a fire adapted pine that once dominated open woodlands across the Cumberland Plateau), but I leaned after I finished the painting that at least one of them, the robust tree that is the focal point of the composition, is in fact a loblolly sporting a shortleaf like habit.
