Memphis is just dancing this week in the joy and beauty of spring. I love flowering tree season, and I've been neglecting everything else I should be doing and seizing the short cherry tree bloom season to go paint. I did a pair of cherry tree oils several years ago, and it's been fun trying to capture them in a different medium.

Above is Belvedere Street, the prettiest road in Memphis for my money -- wide medians with an abundance of fruit trees and dogwoods. The entire neighborhood is a level three arboretum.

Below is the walking entrance to Overton Park, the one I enter by most days. The cherry trees are a fairly recent and very welcome addition there.

Last is the longtime row of cherry trees along Cherry Road, which runs in front of the Botanic Gardens and through Audubon Park. I remember riding along this road as a child, and the city parks department has done a lovely job replacing trees as needed to keep this row vibrantly beautiful every spring. I ran out yesterday to paint and only had time to do one, but I was happy to make it at peak season. If today's storms don't knock all the blossoms off, I may go back there tomorrow as well.