Getting Inspiration

I decided to start my day by visiting the New London Library and scanned the children's wall mural, (which is very similar to what I want to do) and flipped through children's books. I spent a while sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking at and sometimes reading children's "picture" books. I realized with my three boards I wanted three scenes: a forest scene which runs into a river scene which runs into a lake scene, with some underground and underwater portions.
Then I returned to campus and immediately started painting. Using acrylics I spent hours painting chipmunks, foxes, and raccoons until I liked them all. I also made lists of things I wanted in my three scenes, different animals, plants etc.
I realized I liked the idea of using animals as they look realistically, but the scene would be too perfect to be realistic, and with perhaps fairies or gnomes here and there. I did a complete turn around from my completely fantastic scenes yesterday to my more realistic but utopian scenes today.
I also asked hanna what she wanted to see in the tree house since she would be playing in it.