Time Traveler – Painting Fall Trees

Travel isn’t always about where. It can be about when, as well. Lord knows, I haven’t been much of anywhere lately, but I did go to when this past weekend, so I thought I would share.

It was fall 2007. We had finished up the bulk of our townhouse remodel, minus the scary basement.

I was plum out of decorating projects, so I thought I would try something new. I picked up one of those “how-to-paint” mini-books by Donna Dewberry. Have you heard of her? She developed a certain paint technique called “one-stroke” that has taught many a non-schooled painting enthusiasts how to actually paint something that is recognizable by the human eye.

I had been wanting to try to paint for sometime. Somewhere along the way, I had also picked up a piece of old canvased art from a garage sale. I was ready to go.

 

I gave the old painting a few coats of white paint, that is after I made sure it wasn’t a Rembrandt. Then I followed Donna Dewberry’s technique for making trees. Low and behold, I was now a painter.

 

As I painted away, over several days, I thought,  “Wow, this technique really works!! I think these actually look like trees.” I was quite pleased, though not finished with this particular painting.

You see, it was right around this time that my mom started calling me more and more often. She needed to talk; or would ask me to stop by;  run an errand; or go with her for a walk (that was here favorite).

The quality time with my mom became more and more frequent.

Her favorite past time of taking walks became mine, too. Often it was just a walk in the neighborhood, but our most coveted walks of all were those in the woods… in the Fall.

As  I drove about town this weekend, running my own errands, I watched as homeowners raked leaves into piles. No sooner the piles were made, the leaves began to blow away again into the Autumn wind.

I smiled and thought of my mom. I thought of this painting… and I thought of my mom.

 

The painting never did get finished, but it hangs proudly on my wall each Fall.

To when have you traveled lately?

Donna Dewberry has plenty of YouTube tutorials, as well. This is not a sponsored post, but if you have never painted and would like to try, here is one of her short videos to check out.