This painting, "The Flight of the Magnolias," was inspired by a photograph I shot in our neighborhood last spring. The day was grey but the colors of the blooms were brilliant. A photograph documents an image, a point of view, a moment in time, but a watercolor painting provides additional emotion, personality, individuality and expression with the strokes of the hand. Looking at the flowers' orientation felt like flight. The fleeing spring blooms that would give way soon. This year, the magnolias were hit by a late freeze, leaving the blooms singed with brown.