It has been awhile since I posted a tree that really inspired me, not that I didn't see one, but maybe I wasn't holding a paint brush at the time.  This tree inspiration happened in Door County, Wisconsin.  It was huge Box Elder, that had all these growths protuding out.

It has been a while since I posted anything on my blog, so now I have decided to post only trees that inspire me.  This one in  particular really caugtht my attention because the sky was shinning thru it so beautifully.  I had never painted a cedar before.   I thought about wiping it down the next day,but recieved a lot of complements when I posted it on  facebook that I decided to keep it for awhile anyway.  A year from now it might be history.  

This is a painting I did in  the afternoon on a hot early September afternoon at Haue Valley Farm.  It was a benefit for the Pacific Meramec Riverwalk Trail and it sold all five hundred tickets in advance. There were also raffles, food, and bluegrass bands, which will happen again next year.    I escaped the crowd to paint this painting, but unfortuately the chiggers were escaping as well, right into all the tight areas of my clothing.  This painting is available,  

This is a painting I did at one of my favorite places to paint and I don't have to drive very far to see such a beautiful 
place.  It is the Shaw Nature Reserve in Gray Summit, Mo.  This is a cup plant in the prairie.  It is showing the signs of
fall with the browns, purples that show on the cup shape leaves. 

So this is my first blog post that I want to try to explain as to why I am attracted to certain subject matter.  Of course, as a  painter I want to be selective in my choices, but that is not always in my controll.  For instance, this little painting was done in the winter of 2014  at a convervation area in southern Mo.  I went to a native plant talk with my husband and decided to take my paints, and to my surprise they were woods, and lots of them. Not a bad thing if  you can just look in the woods 
and paint woods.  It can be challenging to capture a good composition, which I am always still trying to figure that out.
I was pleased with how it turn out.