Sketch for View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (The Oxbow), 1836, Made in United States, Oil and pencil on composition board, 5 1/2 x 9 3/8 in. (14 x 23. 8 cm), Paintings, Thomas Cole (American, Lancashire 1801?1848 Catskill, New York), Cole inspired many of his colleagues, including his most important student, Frederic Edwin Church, to take up plein-air painting or sketching in pencil or oils. For Cole, the act of sketching outdoors went hand in hand with the close study of nature and was an essential tool in the creation of a significant studio painting