We have these cool starlight lanterns hanging outside on our deck. We bought them a few years ago in Mexico on one of our trips down there. I love them in the daylight and I especially love them in the evening. I was going to wait till this evening to take a pic of them but I couldn’t wait.

These starry lanterns seem to have made their way into one of my paintings, hanging in the branches of whimsical trees.
I’m really fond of this painting below. It’s one of my favorites of the one’s that I’ve done recently. It’s titled “Leaning into Starlight”.

Leaning into Starlight
20″ x 30″
Acrylic on Wood
Unframed, $750
My favorite part of the painting are the trees leaning into each other and holding the star lantern. When I was painting it, I was thinking about the two trees being a couple and I liked that they leaned together, sharing the light.
detail
I found out after I had painted these recent whimsical woodlands, that aspen trees grow in colonies and share the same root system underground. Wikipedia says “Each individual tree can live for 40–150 years above ground, but the root system of the colony is long-lived. In some cases, this is for thousands of years, sending up new trunks as the older trunks die off above ground.”
Sometimes you’ll see a stand of trees that have turned color but another stand that has not. I was told it was because the one’s that have their leaves all yellow share the same root system with the others so they all turn color at the same time. That surprised me to hear that because I’d never thought of that before. I like this.
I’m now calling my whimsical tree paintings aspens rather than birch. I read online that birch don’t like hot, dry areas and since we live in the high desert I’m sure these are aspens. Although mine have no leaves. Yet. Maybe I’ll try some with leaves. What do you think? Do you think my trees need leaves?
Soon I’m going to make a greeting card of this painting as well as some for my other magical woodlands paintings. When I have them ready, I’ll list them in my Etsy Shop. You can find an 8.5″ x 11″ print of this painting in my Etsy Shop now. Hope you enjoy “Leaning into Starlight”.

























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