Happy Holidays! Introducing A New Christmas Card!

Here we are again! It's hard to believe that the holidays are upon us!

This is my newest holiday card. It features a watercolour I did of the Christmas tree farm that we've visited annually for the past several years. It's such a lovely family tradition to go and cut our own tree down. And, of course, I had to include Meeko on the card! I also have a French version of this card. It's also available as an ungreeted note card.



I currently have a lovely sale on. I'm offering 30% off everything in my shop: original watercolour paintings, note cards, holiday cards, prints, books and bookmarks. The discount will be added as soon as you put something in the cart. No coupon is required. The sales ends at midnight EST on December 2, 2019.

It's not the first time that I've featured Meeko on my cards. He's also on this sweet holiday card I did last year.

And here he is again on an everyday note card which I did a few years ago! What can I say? He's a handsome and willing painting subject.

I hope you'll have a peek at my shop while my sale is still on.

And please accept warm greetings from Meeko and me. We wish you lovely holidays surrounded by family and friends.

🌲🎄🐕🎄🌲

Hello, Garden. I've Been Waiting For You.

My garden is waking up again. Each trip outside brings intense moments of joy as I discover more plants inching their way up through the soil and bits of autumn debris, first revealing green tips and then, a few days later, the flowers with their beautiful colours. Goodbye grey and brown! The crocuses in the backyard were the first to emerge. Now they have started to bloom in the front too. There are dwarf irises and scilla too. Interesting that the tiniest flowers are the most courageous ones, daring to appear when the snow has barely melted.

I often say that 'I need my garden and my garden needs me'. This year, it could not be more true. I found this winter to be tough. Ever since the U.S. election, I've been feeling a lot of anxiety about the world. That made it hard to think that painting flowers was important when there were so many scary things going on. I got stuck for a little while. But I think I've come to terms with the fact that small things are important. Like paying attention to nature. Celebrating it. Respecting and nurturing it. Creating art. Painting flowers. Being true to myself. All of these things are valid and positive ways to contribute to the world.

I don't make a big income with my art but I have also tried the last few months to contribute, when I can, to organizations who are trying to make a difference in the world. I believe that tiny gestures do count and they are a way of being engaged in positive change.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram will know that the past few weeks have been particularly stressful as my dog Meeko needed to have unexpected abdominal surgery four weeks ago, just days after his seventh birthday. What seemed like minor digestive issues initially were actually much more serious. He has been diagnosed with a chronic intestinal condition. There were some very emotional days the week of his surgery but I am happy to report that he is doing really well. With medication and a strict diet, our vet is confident that his condition can be controlled. He got his stitches out a week ago and we can now go on our walks together again. He is happy and acting like himself (once again monitoring the neighbourhood squirrels and cats). I am so glad to have my buddy by my side again.

Oh! And another bit of good news. My tea cards were featured in the May 2017 issue of Romantic Homes magazine. It's a really lovely magazine and the May issue is available on newsstands now.

Today I picked the first garden bouquet of this year. It contains dwarf irises, crocuses and a scilla sprig. It was a way to celebrate Easter and the return of my garden. An emissary of more positive days ahead. A sweet handful of hope.

First Snow!

We woke up to this season's first snow and it was extraordinarily beautiful. These are crabapples on a row of small trees in our backyard. This variety is called Sir Lancelot. The tiny yellow fruit remind me of jewels. It is particularly nice at this time of year to be left with bits of colour after the leaves have fallen from the trees and shrubs.

Meeko was very excited to see the snow and did two crazy fast loops of the backyard in celebration. I was able to convince Chloé to accompany us to the forest for a morning walk before she headed downtown for her classes.

I'm so glad we went as it was absolutely enchanting. All of the trunks and branches of the trees were covered with snow. These photos were taken in colour (you can see a bit of colour in the leaves at the top) but they look like they were taken in black and white. The marshy areas border parts of the pathway through the forest.

As Chloé and I drank the beauty of the morning in with our eyes, Meeko dipped his nose in it. To each, their own form of celebration!

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️

If you'd like to visit my shop, please click here.

Meeko and the Morning Glories

Meeko and the morning glories. Ha! I think that would be a good name for a band!

These morning glories reseeded themselves from last year. As they've grown, I've guided them towards the little fence that backs the flower bed. They've twirled and curled around the wire and look so pretty.

I didn't grow morning glories for a couple of years when Meeko was a pup. In those days, he couldn't pass a plant without trying to take a bite and morning glories can make dogs sick. Now he ignores most plants except for grass so I'm able to grow morning glories in my garden again.

The blue-purple of these flowers is one of my favourite colours. I love any warm blue tone. The morning glories have created the perfect backdrop to the light blue salvia. I love when the garden leads the way.

There is something very special about morning glory blooms. I think they look like little lanterns, almost as if the light was coming from within them. So very beautiful!

💙 💜 💙 💜 💙

Back to Earth

I am finally back gardening! It was hard to set aside so many cherished activities the past couple of months as I waited for my neck to get better. The good news is that it is improving with physiotherapy. The bad news is that the reason it was vulnerable in the first place is that I have osteoarthritis in my neck. That was hard to accept (especially when I got the diagnosis a day before my birthday) but I suppose finding that out is a good thing as I am learning to be kinder to my neck and not to take it for granted. 

Back in April, I started a big project: revamping the shady garden at the side of our house. The pathway was already there. I created it myself six years ago (paver by paver and wheelbarrow-full of gravel at a time). I still love the pathway but I wasn't happy with the garden. It was especially hard not to like it as it's the view from our dining room window. This is what it looked like in early April.

I completely removed the not-so-great grass that bordered the narrow flower beds. It was a big job but Meeko helped (sort of).

I loved this photo of Meeko so much and the way he was looking at me over his back that I painted him in late April. Cutie pie.

Once the sod was removed, I added good soil, divided the perennials that were already there (bleeding hearts, astilbe, lady's mantle, masterwort, turtlehead, sidalcea, hostas) and rearranged things. I also removed a huge shrub that was past its prime. When I was doing all of this work in April and early May, I was kind of feeling like Superwoman. Well, guess what? I'm not. I'm human after all. An aging human, my neck reminded me in a not very subtle way. The garden waited for me while I adjusted my pride and learned to treat my neck better through improved posture and daily exercises. 

In the past two weeks, I was finally able to finish my garden project. I weeded, added a few new perennials (coral bells and a shasta daisy) and planted an annual passionfruit vine in a pretty obelisk that my husband Jocelyn gave me for my birthday. Some of the new additions need to fill out a little but now I absolutely love looking at this part of the garden! It feels peaceful and serene.

I am happy to announce that I have reopened my shop after having it closed for a month. Yay! I look forward to gardening and painting more in the weeks ahead and sharing my efforts here and on Instagram. Thanks so much for being here!

🌿 🌿 🌿 🌿 🌿

Tulip Time

This spring, I've had one of the prettiest tulip displays ever in my garden. The mild autumn we enjoyed here in the Montreal region meant that I had more time than usual to plant spring bulbs. I bought a lot of bulbs on sale in November and planted them. In December, the earth was still workable so I bought more! Lots of bulbs planted means lots of spring flowers!

In the photo above, you can see the early stages of the tulips in my back flowerbed. The elegant pink-striped ones in the back are 'Ballade'. They have been there for several years and I love them. The multi-coloured mix in front was planted this fall. On Instagram, I mistakenly said the mix was called 'Monet's Garden'. This colourful mix is actually called...wait for it..."Long-Stemmed 2 Months of Flowering Tulips Mixture".  It's certainly not a very poetic name but it is a very diverse and pretty combination of tulips. With the very warm days we have been having recently, a two-month display seems overly optimistic but I am enjoying every single day of them.

This particular flowerbed is visible from our kitchen window and back door so I have been making frequent trips there to gaze out at the tulips. In the more recent photos below, you can see how the stems are taller now and the blossoms more full.

Can you tell that I'm in love with them? 

Sometimes nature give you something a little extra. In the middle of all of these tulips was a very special one. A renegade. Isn't it amazing?

At the side of the house, I planted yellow-pink and purple-toned tulips together and they look like they were made to be friends. The pinks ones are a bunch-flowering tulip called "Quebec". The purple-edged ones are a Triumph variety called "Affaire". Both types have multiple stems so it makes for a very full display. I can see these ones from our dining room window. If it sounds like I spend a lot of time looking out of windows at my garden, I do.

I don't know what the funny-looking tulip below is called. (In case you are worried, he is not in a cage. I have these wire fences throughout my garden. I call them 'Meeko fences'. They are meant to slow down the galloping of a certain boy through my beautiful flowers. In this case, I had pulled one of the fences back in order to photograph the tulips. When I looked up, 'guess who' was sitting behind it grinning at me.)

One of the ongoing disappointments I have about many tulip bulbs is how they disappear over time. The silver lining is that it means that I can adjust and renew the look of my flowerbeds by adding more bulbs each fall. Every spring brings new surprises. I have many other tulips planted here and there in the garden but wanted to introduce my 'newcomers' to you.

Here's the "Monet's Garden" mix of tulips planted in front. I have to admit that I bought them mainly because of their name but I am very happy with their refined and elegant appearance.

If you'd like to see the watercolour images that include tulips in my shop, you can see them here.

🌷 🌷 🌷 🌷 🌷

You may have noticed that I've made some small adjustments to the design of my blog. It's a little wider than before and my photos are also bigger. I hope that you like these small changes. I thought of changing my blog header but I still like it. It's been the same since 2011 but it feels like me. It's one of my favourite watercolour paintings that I did many years ago. The original hangs in our living room.

Today, I also managed to solve a problem I've had on Blogger since I began it in 2011! My photos would automatically indent from the left so I had to manually remove a piece of code after adding each and every photo! It was especially annoying when I had posts with several photos. I found some code that automatically corrects the problem! Hurray! It gets added in the CSS portion of the blog template. I also found some code that resizes my photos to fit my blog columns, also added to the CSS. Two internal changes that make posting a little easier! I'm sharing in case anyone else is struggling to solve similar problems.

Happy Spring!

Happy spring, friends! You know how much I love this time of year! My garden is still sleeping although I'm seeing little signs of life--the tiny tips of bulbs poking through the earth. There is snow predicted for later this week, so we aren't quite in spring weather mode yet.

I'm taking part in a spring giveaway loop on Instagram with eleven other makers and I wanted you to know about it. I'm giving away a set of my daffodil prints and it's very easy to enter. You can see the instructions here. (The giveaway closes at noon eastern time on March 23, 2016.)

Last week, Instagram announced that it will be changing our feeds from chronological order to what they think we want to see most. Uh huh. As if we asked. I feel brain cells disappearing with each 'helpful' algorithm introduced on social media sites. We all know it's really about money and it will very likely make it harder for individuals and small companies to be seen. It's sad to think that Instagram will turn into another Facebook--although with Facebook as its owner, I knew it was just a matter of time. I love Instagram so much. It's such a warm, creative place. I hope that it won't lose all of its charm and will still be a place where creative folks can meet. We will see.

My indoor potted daffodils have given me so much pleasure this past month as I waited for spring to arrive. The first daffodil bloomed on February 25th and there are still new ones opening each day. In the autumn, I layered a whole bunch of mixed daffodil bulbs in three big pots that I usually have outdoors for summer annuals. I can't wait to see the bulbs I planted outdoors too. There's so much anticipation this time of year.

And in other news, this bundle of curls turned six years old last week! Meeko is such an important part of our family. His daily companionship means the world to me.

I wish you a lovely spring (or autumn if you are in the southern hemisphere)! If you'd like to see more of my spring art, you can see it here.

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

A Snow Bunting and a Squirrel Problem

Here is the painting I have been working on the past few days. I think it's finished now. This sweet bird visited our backyard a few years ago. I didn't even know what kind of bird it was at the time. It looked to me like a cross between a large sparrow and a bunny. So fluffy! I looked it up and found that it was a snow bunting. I'm glad it stayed long enough for me to take a few photos of him.

I did a previous painting of him but I like this one much more. I hope to have prints and cards available with this image in my shop in the next week or so.

I love birds and have always fed them in our backyard. Having a garden that welcomes wildlife is important to me. I also wanted Emma and Chloé to learn about nature through our garden. From when they were toddlers, I kept bird, caterpillar and butterfly guides near our back door so we could identify our garden visitors. Among the birds that have visited our yard are sparrows (many, many sparrows), chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, juncos, robins, swallows, mourning doves, cedar waxwings, hummingbirds, house finches, goldfinches and woodpeckers. We've had rare visits by a kingfisher, a hawk and a ruffed grouse. Plus the sweet snow bunting.

We have been in our current house for over 16 years. It was a new neighbourhood when we moved in so there were very few trees initially, which also meant that there weren't any squirrels. But there are now! The trees have matured. Now my bird seed isn't just attracting my feathered friends, it is attracting squirrels as well...which would be fine except for Meeko. Meeko is calm and accepting when birds are at our feeders. But squirrels? Oh my. He gets riled up, wants to chase them and he barks...a lot. I try to keep him quiet for the sake of our neighbours and our own sanity but it's hard to do. Last week, Chloé was studying for exams and Meeko was barking incessantly at the squirrels. She suggested that maybe I need to stop feeding the birds or to find another place for the feeder that is not visible from the house. That is such a hard thought for me although she may be right. I'm trying to think of alternate solutions. I thought of placing food on the ground somewhere to divert the squirrels' attention. I've even thought of placing paper at Meeko's eye level on the back door so he can't see them from inside. If you have a brilliant idea, let me know!

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On another topic, I have a few of my prints on sale currently! You can have a look at them here. I've been working on my shop a lot these past few weeks. I now have my art organized by category and theme. I hope it makes browsing more efficient and interesting. 

Ice and Tea

Not iced tea. Ice and tea. Sunday's weather was mild and weird. Pouring rain in January. Not normal. Then, overnight, winter decided to come back. Yesterday was bitterly cold with high gusts of wind. So all of that rain and melted ice and snow from the previous day froze--unevenly. Meeko's and my walk in the forest was 'careful'. I wore cleats on my boots as I do most of the winter. Meeko is agile but even he had to carefully avoid patches of ice and the odd pocket that wasn't fully frozen. We only met one other brave soul walking so we kind of felt like adventurers. 

When it's cold and rainy or cold and icy, tea comes to mind. I need coffee to wake up in the morning but I love to drink tea the rest of the day as I find it to be very comforting. I was very happy to sell one of my Time for Tea prints over the weekend to someone who was giving it as a gift to her best friend with English roots. Two of my grandparents were born in England so I have English roots too. I'm not sure if that's why I like tea so much but it is a nice connection. 

When I photographed my Time for Tea print to post on Instagram the other day, I used one of my grandmother Viola's teacups as a prop. I am lucky to own her Limoges china set and really should use it more often. Yesterday, I was finally (finally!!!) sitting back at my painting table in my studio but wasn't quite sure what to paint. I have a painting I need to finish from before the holidays but I really wanted to do something new, just to loosen up and gain confidence again. (Yes, it only takes a few weeks of not painting to lose it. ) My grandmother's teacup was staring at me, delicately, and seemed to be the perfect choice.

This is more of a sketch than the paintings I usually do. I tried not to get too caught up in the detail and or to feel that it had to be perfect. The metallic gold paint I bought on a whim a long while ago was perfect for the china's gold trim. I like how the painting turned out and want to paint this cup again. It's nice to have my first painting of 2016 done. I am over that hump and now on to the rest of the year! Happy new year, everyone!

A Green Christmas

I think we are heading for a green Christmas. It's so unusual in Montreal not to have at least a bit of snow on the ground at Christmas. It's what everyone is talking about here. The skating rink boards were installed weeks ago in the park across the street but there isn't a snowflake or a sliver of ice in sight.

There's not really anything one can do so, while dreaming of snow, we are going about our days and getting ready for the holidays. Today it is colder but the forecast for the week ahead is for mild, rainy days.

The photo above is of tiny rain-soaked crabapples in my garden. While I was taking this photo and others on one of the rainiest days of the past week, a patient, slightly soggy Meeko waited for me on the back porch. Such a good boy.

I have been painting. If you follow me on Instagram, you will have seen my progress photos of a watercolour I just finished of a small winterberry branch. This is my favourite kind of painting to do--a study of a natural object. I have another step to do as this will be a special print, actually one that was suggested to me by a lovely customer.

When I was purchasing the winterberry branches to use as my painting references at a local garden centre, the sales clerk told me that their spring bulbs were 80% off. I already planted over 350 bulbs in November but the ground still isn't frozen and the price was hard to resist. So I purchased some more spring bulbs and added them to my garden this past week! Planting spring bulbs in the garden in mid-December! The silver lining of this odd weather.