Garden Sketches - Roses, Lavender, Peonies; all the favorites!

My favorite time of year here in New England - summer, glorious summer! This climbing rose is the most fragrant thing, right by our front door! The little nest had been abandoned, and built within the canes of the rose, mid-way up the pillar! Isn't that a romantic little home? Except for it being in a rather busy spot...and later being blown out by a storm! Now, as for the sketchbook itself, it's made by Nujabi, from India, and is a very soft beautiful handmade paper with a deckled edge. It used to be my favorite paper. But I've found one that I like much, much more! (which I'll talk about in a later post). I've been enjoying using a Lamy Joy fountain pen to draw with, and use a variety of watercolors (Winsor Newton, Daniel Smith, M. Graham). In some areas with finer detail I use a Pitt permanent pen.

The front garden is so inviting! I love being in this area! The fragrances are wonderful, and when one plant goes out of bloom, another is just coming into bloom! The peonies have just gone by, the roses are still hanging in there, and the lavender is just bursting open! Oh the color and fragrance!

We have 2 different varieties of peonies, one is pink and the other white (but do I remember the names?, no, that's what I depend on my garden guru hubby to do for me!...I remember the fragrance and color!).  The white variety in the front garden is heavenly! 

 Just a nice spot to sit for a short while...not to linger very long. But it certainly is inviting to come home to!

The pale pink rose is along the fence, it took a hit from a winter thaw followed by a snow storm. During the thaw, it was just long enough for things to start budding. Froze back most of my hydrangeas, too. The darker pink rose is wonderfully fragrant, and a lovely climber. We've trained it up the pillar on the front porch. 

 One of my lavender varieties, the darker purple Hidcoate is beautiful! I just love the color! It's shorter in height than the lavender grosso variety we are also growing, but the fabulous color certainly makes up for that! What are your favorite garden plants? I have to admit - our gardens have turned out to be so satisfying! The work never ends, but the results are so delightful!

Peony Passion - Mentoring Monday Classes

12"x12" oil on archival panel

For more information, or to purchase, click here. 

Can you tell it's my favorite time of year?  I'm so excited once everything starts blooming. The peonies this year are BIG, abundant, and have a light, tender fragrance.

Perhaps it's because I have to wait so long for them to arrive that I appreciate them so much. This bouquet was the subject in my "Mentoring Mondays" class. Luckily we finished before the the rains set in for the day.  

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." - 

Marcel Proust

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Morning Grace - Monday Mentoring Classes

8"x8" oil on archival panel

For more information, or to purchase, click here. 

I'm enjoying spending time with students in my 'Mentoring Mondays'-leading other artists on their own art journey. At this point in the year, the garden is bursting out with color, the weather is comfortable and a total delight for plein air painting.  In the mornings, the eastern morning light hits this part of the picket fence and the rock wall below it. It's funny, when we planned the garden, I knew the picket fence would be an important feature for me (I've always wanted a garden like this).  But one of the most intriguing things (for me any way) is representing light and shadow on white surfaces. Where they come together is an endless fascination for me.  This painting leans more to the abstract, yet I love the memory of the fuchsia blooms on this rhododendron crawling over and poking through the fence, and the magenta shades in the dwarf Japanese maple below. By the time a week passes, the colors and blooms will be different. The light in the summer sky changing just a bit each day.  I love to hear from other artists & gardeners about your own favorite gardens!

Zinnia Garden

24"x20" oil on gallery wrapped canvas

$1200

Buy It Now

or contact me here for more information

The hummingbirds are still in town...

and they like zinnias, too!

Joys Of Summer Garden Blossoms

6"x8" oil on Belgian linen mounted on archival board

For more information about this painting or to purchase, please visit this link, or 

contact me here.

Cone-flowers, day-lilies, hydrangeas, blue geraniums, catmint, daisies

whew, the list is endless or so it seems. They are all in bloom right now in my front garden!

Geraniums and Lavender

5"x7" oil on gessoed masonite archival panel

For more information about this painting, or to purchase, click here.

Summer flowers are such a delight...fragrance, color, and the sounds of bees humming happily. 

So serene.

The lavender is ready for me to harvest.

Bringing in big bundles, the fragrance is wonderful inside the home home as well as out. 

Yes, this is what I crave all winter long. 

I am enjoying this moment of bliss in my garden, 

a little haven - heaven - here on earth.

I'm returning from almost two weeks of travels with family and am so glad to be back home. I was actually worried that I'd miss so much in the growing season, by being gone for that long.  One lucky thing, the very day I returned, my little orchid in my kitchen window has re-bloomed for me! 

Roses Before The Rain

12"x16" oil on linen mounted on archival panel

"There  will be a rain dance Friday night, weather permitting."  -George Carlin

For more information about this painting, please click here.

This little 'courtyard' area is like an inviting little room beside by front door.  It's such a wonderful piece of paradise to sit there, any time of day. 

Yesterday (Wednesday)  I painted outside in my garden hoping to finish before the sky opened up in the rain that was predicted.  Well, no rain ever came, just gray skies, a bit of a mist at one point, but no rain.  The skies may seem subdued on a gray day, but colors of your flowers and shrubs seem a bit richer as the sun isn't "washing them out".  The roses climbing up the porch post have outdone themselves this year. Standing there painting was incredible-  as their fragrance surrounded me!

 Today (Thursday), the sun was out brilliantly- and all those huge white peony blossoms to the left of the bench have plopped over in the heat! The blooms still look fresh, they're just too heavy to hold their heads up!

Hmm, I think tomorrow I'll be painting some cut blossoms in a huge vase!!

Summer Beckons

20"x24" oil on stretched canvas

"Summertime is always the best of what might be." 

-Charles Bowden

For more information about this painting, please visit my website here.
 
Delightful seaside cottages, summer gardens, here in New England (or any place you can imagine for that matter), cool breezes off the water - can you think of any place you'd rather be?

This one took me longer than usual to finish - it's a bit bigger than I usually paint.  That, plus I spent the whole weekend working in my own piece of paradise- our own garden is over-flowing with blooms right now! It's my favorite time of year!