Sunflowers for Ukraine

I’m hoping to make a small difference instead of sitting with knots in my stomach and an ache in my heart. I’ve listed a Sunflowers Print in my shop. It features a painting I did years ago and still love, and one that seems pertinent for the time we are in as the sunflower is Ukraine’s national flower. 

For the entire month of March 2022, I will donate $20US from each US order and $25CDN from each Canadian order of my Sunflowers Print. The donations will go the the Canada-Ukraine Foundation which is providing humanitarian aid to Ukrainians in their country as well as countries where they’ve taken refuge.

The Sunflowers print measures 8 x 6 inches and is on beautiful watercolour paper. I print my art with love and care in my studio.

UPDATE: Thanks to the purchases of my customers, I was able to donate a total of $220US ($275CDN) to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation to help the Ukrainian people. Thank you for your love and support. We did it together. (This special fundraising effort ended on March 31, 2022.)

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Pansies and Violas: Favourite Flowers

Anyone who has followed me for a long time here or elsewhere on social media knows how much I love pansies and violas. They have strong childhood associations for me and remind me particularly of my mom's mother who was named Viola. They are also favourite garden flowers with delicate looks yet a hardy character, perfect for a northern garden. And they are a joy to paint.

This spring I did a painting of some little yellow and white violas that I bought in a little pot to cheer up our kitchen windowsill. I've made my watercolour into prints and cards. You can see the note card in the photo at the top.

Cheering up is the key role I think of these flowers. Whether in the garden, a pot or a vase, their little faces have the ability to lift our spirits. Who doesn't need that, especially right now?

The very first print I created in my studio in 2011, when I launched my online art business, was of a watercolour painting I did of a pot of pansies in my backyard. That happy group of blue pansies was punctuated by pink nemesia, coral diascia and white euphorbia. It's still available in my shop as a print (shown below) and note cards.

This past week, I added an assortment of pansy and viola note cards to my shop. I chose five of my favourite watercolour paintings: Pansy Quartet, Pansies in a Pot, Posy of Pansies and Violas, Violas and Verbena, and Yellow and White Violas. This notecard collection is for all of the pansy and viola lovers out there like me.

When I was a little girl, I would follow my grandmother around as she fed the birds and squirrels in her backyard and tended to the annuals. One of my favourite memories is of her letting me pick pansies from the garden to put in the beautiful silver and glass posy vase she owned. The memory of gathering pansies with her was so special to me that I tracked down an almost identical vase for myself years later from an antique dealer.

If you'd like to see all of my pansy and viola art currently available, click here. There are prints, print sets, note cards, my new note card assortment, and a bookmark. I hope that they give you the same pleasure that they give me.

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Mad for Magnolias

Many years ago, I worked in a corporate communications job during the day and painted in the evenings. I was living in an apartment in midtown Toronto and having a garden of my own was only a dream. Each spring, I would take an alternate route home from work for about a week or two. It was a winding road through a beautiful residential neighbourhood. Around a curve and at the top of a hill was the reason for my detour--a gorgeous magnolia tree in bloom. 

Years later, I finally have my own magnolia tree in my very own garden. It's a pink star magnolia called Magnolia stellata 'Rosea'. I planted it about ten years ago. It's very slow growing and has taken a long time to get established. It's still quite small, about my height, but the blooms are now plentiful and spectacular.

 Last week I decided that I needed to paint one of its flowers! I took a few photos of the blossom I was going to paint to be sure I had references as I knew it wouldn't last long.

Here's my painting on the second day when I was still building my washes. I paint slowly! The bloom I picked wilted after about 24 hours which is when I dissected it to have a closer look at the colour and markings on the petals.

I love holding garden specimens as I paint them. It allows me to observe their details closely. For example, I had never noticed the little speckles on the magnolia tree's bark until I was doing this painting. It took me three painting sessions over the same number of days to complete the painting. Below is the finished original watercolour painting!

After I completed my painting, I knew I had to create a print pretty quickly if I wanted to photograph it with actual magnolia flowers as the blooming period lasts for such a short time. Each morning when Meeko ran to the back door to do his morning check for squirrels, I would make sure the magnolia hadn't lost its blossoms. To each his own priorities! I am happy to say that I completed my print in time! Here are some photos of my star magnolia print which is now available in my art shop. It's printed on gorgeous paper that reproduces the delicate details of the image beautifully.

Here is my print in front of the magnolia tree that inspired it! You can have a look at more images of it here. Now I wonder what flower I should paint next?

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A 2017 Calendar!

I am happy and proud to introduce my first Trowel and Paintbrush calendar!

It's twelve months of herbs and edible flowers featuring my botanical watercolour paintings.

I started working on this project a year ago. I was encouraged by an artist friend (thank you for the nudge, Brenda of @cattailswordwork) to think about doing a calendar. I quickly figured out my theme: herbs and edible flowers. I already had six herb paintings finished. I started to work on six edible flower paintings hoping to have it ready for 2016 but I underestimated the time it was going to take me. Rather than introducing a rushed effort late in the season, I decided to make it a 2017 calendar.

I did some finessing of the edible flower paintings early this year. In the past few weeks, I hand lettered the months and days in watercolour. Some of lettering was done with a fine paintbrush, some with a pen nib dipped in watercolor paint.

I chose 'Mint' for the January page as it seemed to fit with a fresh start. The sweet violet bouquet seemed to be perfect for February, aptly so I found out later as the violet is February's birth flower. I chose 'Thyme' for March because time marches on. (Sorry to be corny but it's true! Sometimes I need to amuse myself.) I placed my viola and pansy painting as the July image since that's when my birthday is and violas and pansies have lots of family associations for me. Sage is on the December page as it is so often used in holiday meals.

I've printed the calendar in my studio on beautiful paper with the same care and attention I give to everything that I produce. As a bonus, I also created an accompanying page which describes some common uses of the herbs and flowers featured in my calendar.

The calendar would be a lovely gift for a gardener, cook or nature lover. Or you may want to buy it for yourself! It would brighten up a kitchen nook or an office space. I sell it without a hole at the top centre which is perfect if you want to display it with a clip, clothespin or washi tape. Or I can punch a centre hole for you so you can loop a piece of twine or ribbon through it.

It was so much work but I am thrilled with how it turned out. I really hope you like it too!

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My Herb Watercolor Collection

I have been working so hard the past few weeks on introducing new prints to my shop. I had a stack of paintings just waiting for me to spend some time with my computer and printer. Today, I listed my Herb Collection prints in my shop. I am such a perfectionist and I am thrilled with how they turned out. It always matters to me to get the details right. The paper I chose to print them on is really lovely. I don't think that the photos do justice to the delicate detail of the watercolour images and the beautiful texture of the paper. You can have a closer look at the six images in my shop. They are: basil, sage, thyme, lavender, summer savory and mint. I hope you like them!

The herbs in the top photo are from my garden. I picked bunches of them a few weeks ago to dry. I hung them from a big, beautiful branch that I had trimmed off of my spindle tree. That branch now hangs on my dining room wall right above the computer where I am typing this post.

I love having herbs in my garden and I will really miss them this winter.  Here is one of my favourite recipes from this past summer. I formed soft goat cheese into balls and then rolled them in a combination of fresh herbs. I put them in a jar full of olive oil and kept them in the fridge. They were absolutely delicious on slices of baguette. A real hit! The leftover olive oil had bits of herbs and goat cheese in it and was perfect in salad dressings and in pasta recipes.

While I am itching to get back to painting, I have a few more prints to make. Next will be a set of four pansy prints based on paintings I did a few months ago. After that, I will be framing a selection of my small watercolour paintings to sell in my shop. They will be perfect for holiday gift giving!

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I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for the overwhelming response to my last blog post. It was difficult yet comforting to know that so many of us have been feeling the same things about our Etsy experience, especially during the past year. Thank you for your support. It means so much to me.