On a hot summer day in August quite a few years ago I found myself in the middle of a vibrant, blooming and buzzing prairie in Missouri. It was the first time I had ever experienced the prairie in full bloom and the experience was quite overwhelming. All those flowers! While I was familiar with the Purple Coneflower and the Black-Eyed Susan from our nursery back home in the Netherlands, I had never seen them bloom in the wild.

While I was taking a moment to take it all in an American Goldfinch landed on a stem right in front of me. The beauty of it took my breath away: a bright yellow bird in the middle of a sea of yellow flowers. Then slowly, very slowly, the stem bent down under the weight of the finch and the inspiration for my painting was complete. I immediately knew I had to make this painting to capture that sense of enchantment forever.