The French painter Delacroix wrote that "first... a painting must be... a feast for the eyes." I take this view as a guide for my subject matter, and this often leads me to a wide variety of places that usually offer more colorful material to work with. Fall color trips around the country and excursions to certain areas of the American Southwest are some of my favorite subjects for oil painting, and I also look to my garden, and marine subjects with boats or seascapes, while floral still lifes round out studio work when I am not working on landscapes. But getting out in the open air is where I find most of my zeal for painting-I always feel transformed by it, and in a world where the natural, or pristine landscape is vanishing, my time spent out and about provides a spiritual retreat, as well as an interesting motif…