Washington tree - Autumn Landscapes #8

White Oak, National Arboretum
Oil on Panel, 10x8"
(c) Kelly Medford, 2011

Like the last post - this is also a painting of an oak tree in Autumn.

This plein air painting of a white oak tree with splendid red/coral colour leaved leaves is by Kelly Medford (Adventures in Painting).  She painted it at the beginning of November while visiting The National Arboretum in Washington DC - and this is her original post on her blog - which is worth reading to get her experience of the day.

I'm thinking that it's probably Quercus Alba as the leaves are red and that's one of the characteristics of this tree.  (Can you tell that I roam around botanical gardens searching for the plate which tells you what a tree is!  I'm always amazed at how many different types of oak there are).

The National Arboretum looks a really splendid place - and you can take a virtual visit.  It also has a splendid web page about The Science of Colour in Autumn Leaves.  Kelly comments on her blog post.

This day I was particularly lucky, as one of the few staff members and only arborist stopped to watch me paint. He was excited that someone had stopped to paint and was particularly proud because I happened to choose the area that he was responsible for and where he had spent the last year thinning out an exotic invasive Elm. As we talked he told me about the budget cuts at the arboretum allowing them to only maintain 8 full-time staff to keep the grounds, the grounds being approximately 450 acres! I thanked him for their work, they do an amazing job of keeping up the place, it is absolutely gorgeous with a huge variety of gardens, trails and spaces.

How to get your paintings of Autumn posted on this blog


This is the eigth in my series of Autumn Landscapes by art bloggers. If you're interested in having your images displayed as part of the seasonal changes

• drop me a line (see side column for email), 
• reference the blog post in which I can see the painting 
• and (this is important) use Readers Autumn Landscapes in the subject line of your email (This is so I can find it in the masses I get each day!)

Places to Paint: Please note that I'm also interested in the place as well as what led you to paint it in Autumn.

I can't promise to display all that I'm told about. Plus there is an absolute rule which is that this is for art bloggers only ie "no blog post, no feature on my blog".