Olive orchard in full sun, July.

Beastly hot today. Absolutely scalding outside. Not a cloud in the beautiful blue Tuscan sky. So, what to do with my day? Hmm, I know, go outside and paint the full noon sun in the hottest part of the day, without shade in my favorite olive grove. "Why? What a knucklehead! Incredible," I can almost hear the comments now.

Risking certain ill health effects from over-exposure to sun, I desparately wanted to capture the noon-sun effect in the olive grove. Twilight, been there, done that, I've done three of those now, and nailed two of 'em. I knew I'd feel like crap afterwards. But some of you have noticed that this painting trip has been about sunlight. Not much of a surprise there, coming from Holland, where they had summer this year for three weeks in late June. Or was it two? Now its autumn there. I've been exploring sunshine and trying to capture it in paint. Tuscany is a good place for that.

And you know what? I did a little dance after the painting was done. I moon danced, I drew my imaginary guns and I shot that painting. I spanked it. Hot DOG! I laughed, I sang, and I danced some more, out there in those baking hot fields, all alone. Where's video when you need it? It was all totally worth it. It is absolutely what I wanted to capture.

And I do indeed feel like crap now, but I still think it was worth it and not the heat-exhaustion making me dance... After quarts and quarts of water (I drank 2 LITERS onsite, you'd think that would be enough) I still haven't peed much and I have a headache. (By the way, heat-exhaustion is the last step before heat-stroke, which can be fatal. I once rode in an ambulance to the emergency room with a 22 year old who really almost almost almost died from this. His thermostat got screwy and before he recovered his body temp dropped to about 94 or so and his heart slowed to almost nothing. So don't kid around with this stuff, like I'm doing now.)

Welcome to one of my favorite paintings of the trip, I hope that you like it at least a little, it was like hell trying to paint the damn thing.