This is a 14 x 20 inch watercolor of an historic Victorian home in Old Northville. It is a small, extremely charming and quaint community between Detroit and Ann Arbor. I took the pictures for this painting on my visit to Michigan in 2006. I was horribly ill with a really bad cold, but I dragged myself out of bed and had my cousin drive me to Northville to get some pictures coughing and sneezing all the way. I am certainly glad I did. This house was located in the historic town center with a number of other historic buildings. The house is presently painted dark green with light green trim, but I painted it in a dark ocher shade to give it more of a Currier and Ives feeling to it. I thought the ocher would make a nice contrast to the foliage along the lake shore in front of the house. I misjudged the effect of the background foliage which caused the house to wash out up against the background. I added a red roof and light green trim to help to differentiate the foreground from the background, but I still wasn't happy with it. Everyone who saw it loved it but me. I couldn't understand what others saw in it that I did not. I decided to put away and give my eyes and head a rest from it. Of course I forgot about it, and then I thought I had finished it. I took the painting out and looked at it with a refreshed eye and I realized what I had was a little gem of a watercolor, so I finished it by adding a bunch of tree branches around the house to the trees to the front and side of the house and to the trees in the background. This helped to separate into three distinct foreground, midrange and background sections which helped to give it a depth and clarity which it had previously lacked. The lesson here is don't ever give up on any painting you have started, but keep revisiting it until you find a path to completion.