This painting is the second version of 246. After I got back to the studio I was able to quietly sit and really explore the scene. I edited out a number of the elements that were competing for focus and zeroed in on the main tree.
What I found after looking at the image was that there was this beautiful spot of light that was hitting the tree. The sunlight illuminated a specific spot on the tree and told me what the story was. So then, instead of it just being a painting of a tree it became a painting of how light hit the tree.