To my surprise, I’ll be working from a visual prompt: this lovely photograph by Rahul Pandit of a small house in nature. This project being about sharing the process from draft creation to polished piece, I thought I would share from the very beginning of my process, through brainstorming to idea before I get to the draft.

First thoughts

I really like the colors: The blue tones in the hills and the glowing light around them separating them from the sky; the lush green of the plants and trees; and the contrast of the small building’s yellow and red that makes it jump out from its surroundings.

Setting

Where is this? Where do I want this to be?

I’m curious about the specific name of the flowers and the trees, so I zoom in and crop a picture of the flowers and head over to name that plant for quick identification. Sadly, that didn’t work, neither did any of the other picture plant identification programs, so I tried comparison identification and believe it is acanthus mollis otherwise known as bear’s breeches which could be fun. It flowers from late spring to early summer, which is the seasonal feel of the photograph, a moment of reprieve before that small structure becomes a summer oven. Next, the trees.

To look at the trees’ possible identity, I went to The Arbor Day Foundation’s What tree is that? After answering the questions, guessing often, it identified my trees as Green Ash. After looking at some pictures of green ash, it’s plausible.

So now I have some specific details for my setting and the lighting, golden hour, puts my story during those magical slanted-light moments of dusk or dawn.

Because of the isolation of the dwelling, I started wondering if my character would eat the bear’s breeches and drink the ash leaves as tea. It turns out both are considered medicinal, so that’s an interesting possibility. I also learned that the acanthus mollis has a sweet scent that attracts insects and the short stalks of the flowers and the area without many flowers can mean that the soil is too rich and the plants may be harboring snails.