and more cherry trees

Went with one of my painting groups on Thursday to our local botanical garden, and was again beguiled into painting the cherry trees. I have to say I'm not thrilled with this one. On a scale of one to ten, it's a five. Trying to deliver such a seemingly simply subject, while it is really...extremely complex. Lots of interweaving of foreground, background..it's tricky to make it believable.

I've been cleaning out my studio the last couple of weeks. Yes, that's right, weeks. What a disaster! I had too much stuff, and it was weighing on my mind and keeping me from painting. I actually destroyed about 20-25 old paintings- I can't keep everything forever, and these had outlived their usefulness It was time to let go. So I took a can of spray paint and defaced some, and the others I will burn. A sacrifice to the gods of painting. Now I'm feeling lighter and happier when I go into my space, and I'm feeling like being creative in there. As Martha says, it's a good thing.

Finally, a warm sunny day-

It was wonderful weather Sunday morning- 65 degrees, sunny, a little breeze. I had permission from a local restaurant, the Cypress Inn, to paint their cherry trees out front. Need to learn to do a tiny sketch first to warm up- I'm not happy with the giant backwards "N" the trees in the background make! I'm thinking major tree surgery will be required on this one.

The second one I really like- it's one of those rare ones that photos not as well as the original. I have a bunch of Raymar panels that I bought, with a fairly rough surface. I'd forgotten how hard it was to photo that!

On the heels of our good weather came bad- lots of severe storm warnings through the night. I managed to stay awake till midnight, when it seemed most of it would go south of us. Left the window (unscreened) open about 8 inches so I could hear the local tornado siren if it went off. So this morning I wake up, and my cat has left me a delightful "present" in my bedroom- a dead bird. Oh, thanks, you shouldn't have, really.

My daughter had told me she had seen the cat taking leaps at the bird feeder (hate I missed seeing that one-) so apparently, she finally managed to connect on one of her leaps. I'm glad house cats aren't six feet long, or they'd be stalking US.