Hydrangeas in four colours
Posted: November 2, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: flowers, hydrangeas, watercolour flowers 22 CommentsBesides watching baseball, this was the weekend to finish up the garden cleanup. I had a list of things that needed to be done — mainly cutting down perennials and shrubs. The biggest of the tasks on my list was to trim the hydrangeas. As I trimmed and discarded the cuttings, I noticed the beautiful, fading colours of each of the different varieties. I set aside one branch from each plant, and when I was done, my reward was to paint them.
You don’t need many colours to paint faded blooms. For these hydrangeas, I chose Carmine and Raw Sienna for the flowers, and Sap Green and Payne’s Grey for the leaves. I love the brownish hues you get when you mix green and red together, so that was my mix for the darks.
This was a great warm-up exercise for my one-day “Plants and Flowers in your Sketchbook” workshop in Hudson, Quebec, coming up this week. This session is full, but I’m holding another one on November 20th and I have a few spots left. If you are interested, drop me a line.
Half-sheet florals
Posted: September 3, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bouquet, flower painting, sunflowers, watercolour flowers 28 CommentsDuring 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.
