I’m the first to say I love the rain, but there comes a time in our sort of climate when a familiar gloom sets in. The gray and the damp shadow our every step, even the most hardy of Vancouverites longs for the brightness, the sunshine, the golden saturation of sunflowers, the perfume of lilies, the long languid warmth of summer.
Every year I’m very fortunate to spend my birthday with my family in the gardens at Kew in London. This July, as I walked round the beds of tall, lush, jewel-like flowers, taking picture after picture, I slowly became aware of the word “Eden”.
I imagine walking here in close communion with beauty and grace, in the warmth of the sunshine again and again.
I knew I had to paint the flowers. Big bold, expressive blooms that draw the viewer in, that seduce and beguile in the pink light of summer.
I started several of these paintings in England. In my small studio at West Cottage the ideas came naturally and quickly. By the end of the summer I had seven canvases to fly to Canada with.
The garden has given me an inexhaustible source of inspiration for which I’m grateful. It is my hope to fill the walls of the gallery with light and colour. It is my pleasure to share this inspiration with you through my paintings.
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your paintings are lush – you are talented in so many ways
Thank you Esther, you are so sweet to say that.
Well, here I am! What beautiful paintings, the colours are so vibrant and the flowers themselves are so cheerful! Are these in oil? Where did you learn to paint? I look forward to wandering around you blog more fully!
Christine
Thank you Christine.
These are in oils. I had an aunt who was a very good painter and she loved me and let me muck about with her oils since I was so very little. I guess she taught me. I always travel with my little art kit, (water colour pencils, pencils, ink) and used to bring my oils with me from Vancouver to OXON and back again but last year I bought a huge amount off ebay.uk and so now have oils in both places. It’s funny, the person who’s oils I bought here in England used slightly different colours than I’m confortable with so it’s been an adventure. 
So beautiful.
Hi Thot Lady. Thank you so much. You make me want to update this part of my site with new work. I really should stop being so lazy and get that done.