The National Park Service says DC's cherry blossoms supposedly reached their peak five days ago, on April 5, but our blossoms in Maryland seem to be peaking right around now. (For the NPS view, check out https://www.nps.gov/subjects/cherryblossom/bloom-watch.htm.) So of course I had to get out there and paint them again!
This time I chose a more ambitious composition -- a shadowed foreground and a lit background -- even though I knew it would be easier to paint the blossoms with a dark background, as I did in my previous blog post. I guess I wanted a change of pace. I also wanted to depict how the blossoms form a canopy over our streets. To do that best, I'd have to stand in the middle of the road and paint, but that's not feasible, especially with the caravan of tourists. The piece turned out reasonably well, but I still prefer the single tree I posted on the blog two days ago.
Geoff Watson, "Cherry blossoms along a road," oil on canvas panel, 11" x 14," 2018.