I remember my first painting of the Viewpoint. At least I think it was the first. I painted it in 1985. I worked on it for about three weeks, according to some notes I took around that time. I painted it in the summer, as I recall, and worked on it mostly in the mid- to late afternoon, in order to have some bluish shadows, along with the bright areas. I was fascinated by the great number of details in the background, including everything in the areas across the bay, and even further, across the lake. The complexity of the scene in the distance contrasted with the relative simplicity of the green areas of the mid-ground and foreground. Towards the end of my work on the painting, Elizabeth posed in the foreground. She wore a pink top and sat on the edge, looking out into the distance. I remember finding it challenging to define the edge. It ended up looking more like a slope. How can this be? Maybe it was actually different back then. I do remember that there was a time when there was no clearly defined trail. There was a trace of a trail, if you walked upwards from the road underneath, but it only went so far. Then it sort of petered out, as you hiked uphill. I remember, as a teenager, struggling the rest of the way up, grabbing vines and dodging blackberry bushes as I pulled my way to the top and then feeling triumphant once, heart pounding, I was looking down at the ravine below.
