In the late 1980’s, I drove to work teaching art Junior High and High School. This was a small school in rural Illinois. Each day I passed an old graveyard with some stones starting to crumble. I looked at it as an artist’s dream forms to paint. One morning, when I was driving to the school, there was an awesome sunrise full of colors. When I got to my classroom, I quickly sketched the sky with pastels. I happened to be teaching the high school students how to stretch canvas and paint on it. I stretched and painted on my own canvas so, students could see how to do it. I used the graveyard and sunrise in the painting. I wanted a river in it reflecting the colors of the sky and a lone tree.