Half-sheet florals

During this summer’s hottest days, I worked on some large florals in my studio. Both of these bouquets come from Ferme Tournesol where I pick up my CSA baskets every week. If you are a subscriber to the basket program, you have the added bonus of being able to cut flowers from their large cutting garden.

The first bouquet I picked was mostly smaller flowers like zinnias and rudbeckias with some tiny stuff mixed in. Instead of painting this in my sketchbook, I took out a half sheet (22″ x 15″) of Arches CP 140 lb paper so that I could really have some room to draw all the details of the flowers. This one took most of a day, but we had our computer tech here installing software updates that day and I couldn’t work in my office anyway. It seemed like a real luxury to spend a full day on a painting.

This week I worked on another half-sheet one of some sunflowers I picked at the farm last Thursday. I did the drawing one day and two days later when I went back to paint it, the flowers had shrivelled considerably. I also noticed an unwanted guest. A large green caterpillar was chewing its way through the leaf on the far right of the painting. That was my incentive to finish this quickly.

Montreal workshops coming!

I’m excited to announce that I’ve finally found a bright and beautiful studio, located in Hudson, Quebec, where I can give watercolour workshops closer to home. So if you live nearby and want to be notified when there’s an opportunity to learn and paint with me, please fill in this form. Also note that these are one-day studio workshops and intended for people who live within driving distance of Montreal.