This is a childhood friend of mine who has a small ranch west of Butte, Montana.  I had this idea of painting a cowboy carrying a saddle and walking in the snow.  As always, he was more than willing to help me out on this one.  On the day we shot the reference, there was no snow and the wind was blowing about 40 miles an hour.  So I started the painting, and during the time I was working on it, we got enough snow to get the remaining reference I needed to complete it...and of course the red coat was my preference.