Spring got a good start while it was still winter, this year. The weather has been quite a bit warmer in March than usual - for the whole Eastern half of the US and Canada (east of the Rockies - that is). Some places - especially Minnesota - had temps that were 40 degrees above average. Many places were breaking records - many for the warmest it had been that early in the year.

Here is has only been Spring a 2 days - but the daffodils have mostly bloomed and dried up. I took a hike at McCormick's Creek State Park yesterday - and the Spring ephemerals were all blooming at once. Normally, some early ones come out, then some others as the weather warms up a bit, then some more. May Apples were up all over in a way that resembled mid-to-late April. Bluebells are blooming.

Every year I take photos of the Spring flowers as if I had never done so before. I'll have to compare dates and see how far along the flowers were in previous years.

Painting-wise - I'm working on some images of snakes / cosmos / water / earth.

I plan on getting out and drawing some wildflowers before they are gone.

I have been busy painting my women and nature series this fall. I had hoped to get out more to paint some plein air/ outside. I have been watching the colors, though. It's been an extremely dry late summer and fall - so many of the leaves just dried up on the trees and didn't change to their normally bright colors. Others changed, then promptly dropped their leaves.

I have a maple out front that I had painted in 2007 with bright red and red-orange leaves. That year was much more damp - and the leaves were holding on and bright all the way to Thanksgiving. This year - they are already mostly gone.

I am more aware of the colors of things that I have painted. I have painted the view from my driveway toward the South in summer and in fall. The colors in the fall seem to change daily and hourly. 

This morning they were not the bright colors one might expect this time of year - but the browns and deep reds were interesting nonetheless. The ridges in the background were blending in with the sky - the result of some morning fog.