Spring Has Sprung Dogwood Tree

I adore dogwood trees.

They're such a sign of spring! 

When we moved into our new house in the fall of 2001, we had no idea how lucky we'd be the next spring when so many wild dogwood trees would bloom.

When we go for our evening walks we pass this friend... little dogwood tree. It takes us through every season.  In summer it's lush and green.  In autumn it has red berries then red leaves. In winter it rests.  Spring (particularly April) is it's time to show off.

The topic for my Creative Companions group this week was "Spring Has Sprung."  The companion piece shows that friend tree.  The four photos show it during the first week of April with buds, the second week of April with new blooms, the third week of April with full blooms, and the fourth week of April with the fading blooms.

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Original Oil Painting on 9"x 12" Wrapped Canvas
Click Spring Has Sprung Dogwood Tree if you'd like to purchase this painting.

Butterfly on Dogwood

We built our house in 2001 and moved in the week of 9/11/2001... (I know... easy/hard date to remember.) Of course, a few trees had to come down in the building process, but we wanted to save as many as possible.

The builder said, "There's a scraggly tree in the back that got pretty scuffed up.  We can take it down or you can wait and see if it survives. It might it a year or so." We decided to leave it.  What a treat that next spring to discover that it was a dogwood!  Even being scruffy and scuffed up, it did survive!

For two decades our little backyard dogwood blessed us with beautiful white blossoms in early spring, a ground-covering snow shower of white petals in late spring, shade in the summer,  red leaves in the fall, and cardinals at the feeder in winter.

Every winter we wondered if it would make it another year. 

When spring of 2022 came, there was something different... 

No tiny green leaves... no white blossoms...

Our scruffy little dogwood tree had finally given up.

Thank you for 21 years of blooms, Scruffy Little Dogwood Tree!

My weekly-ish challenge this time was "Yellow & White." That was a good opportunity to paint this sweet image of a yellow swallowtail on some white dogwood blossoms.

Original Oil Painting on 6"x 8" Wrapped Canvas

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Easter Lilies (Palette Knife)

Easter lilies, day lilies, tiger lilies, surprise lilies, calla lilies, stargazer lilies, water lilies... I do love a good lily. I love seeing them... growing them... and painting them too.

This one's different.

It's not very colorful... and it's a pretty loose style....

There are several different meanings listed for the Easter lily. One is that it's symbolic of new beginnings.  I like that. I'm kind of at a place of rediscovering, redefining, and reclaiming myself as an artist. 

Maybe this Easter lily will be a new beginning for me.

I love it.

Original Oil Painting on 6"x 12" Wrapped Canvas

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White Daisy

What color is white?


I'm going back the very beginning with this one.  I just had my painter's birthday.  Four years ago, I picked up a paintbrush, dipped it in some paint, and smeared it onto a canvas.  I painted a tree that night.  My homework after that class was to paint another tree.  The next week, the art lesson was to paint something black and white.  I did a cup... but it was awful, truly awful!  I don't believe I have the courage to post a picture of it.   The third week, we had to paint something white, and the lesson was to see that white wasn't white at all - but filled with colors.
This is a concept that still amazes me.