 Adopting a more systematic method of painting than he had used previously, he began by mixing batches of paints in incremental values, evidently limited saturation, and with the darkest value considerably higher in key than in his darker, earlier pictures, a method that he employed in "Stranded Brig" as well.Work progressed steadily in 1934, except for the period Dickinson worked on "Stranded Brig", followed by a hospitalization for back pain and ulcers, and for two months at the beginning of 1935, when he finished up work on "Woodland Scene" at the request of his patron, Esther Hoyt Sawyer.Despite teaching painting classes at the Art Institute of Buffalo in the fall of 1934 and the following spring, Dickinson, with the use of Esther's painting studio, managed 216 sittings by June 16, 1935.