Weekly Wrap-Up: Two paintings held my attention this week — and they couldn’t be more different in their demands. The dahlia is complete, and I made a one-minute video tracing its transformation from start to finish, a practice rooted in years of daily studio documentation. Meanwhile, the magnolia is finding its own direction: I let go of the reference photo entirely and gave myself permission to just play with color — a genuine challenge for someone as procedural as I am. A cloud-like treatment on some petals cracked open the composition in a way I hadn’t expected.

Next week, I’ll be shifting gears to pack for my solo exhibition at Locust Manor Historic Site in Poughkeepsie — a complicated, all-day undertaking that requires knowing the space, the traffic flow, and exactly which paintings will live well together on those walls.

Click here to read all the week’s Studio Glimpses

This is a daily journal of my creative efforts as I prepare for my June 2026 solo exhibition in Poughkeepsie, NY, and my November exhibition in Chelsea, New York City.

I’m no longer looking at the original photo of the magnolia for inspiration as I paint. I’ve decided to just experiment with color and play to see what this painting wants to be. Since I’m a very procedural person, this isn’t easy for me to accomplish. But, since it’s not easy, I decided I needed the challenge to just keep trying different ideas with color. I’m surely not there yet, but I’m thoroughly enjoying the process.

Since the weather went from 90 degrees over the last few day, we had rain and now the temps are in the 60s again. It’s playing havoc with some of my flowering shrubs. This beautiful dwarf azalea is a Koromo shikibu Purple Spider. People are usually surprised to hear that it’s a rhododendron. All azaleas are rhododendrons, but not all rhododendrons are azaleas.

This is a daily journal of my creative efforts as I prepare for my June 2026 solo exhibition in Poughkeepsie, NY, and my November exhibition in Chelsea, New York City.

I guess I must like this dahlia. I just realized that a while back, I’d done a colored pencil piece of the original dahlia shown below. It was sitting on the bookshelf in my studio all this time. It’s a little 4 ½ inch square drawing, double matted and framed to 10”. It’s listed on my website here. In looking at these two works together, I realize how much more free I am when I work big. With a small piece, I sit at the drafting table and work mostly with my wrist with tiny, pointed brushes or colored pencils. For oil paintings, I work standing up and paint from my shoulder and elbow with fan brushes. These different ways of working lead me to create very different styles of work. I love that!

This is a daily journal of my creative efforts as I prepare for my June 2026 solo exhibition in Poughkeepsie, NY, and my November exhibition in Chelsea, New York City.

I decided to enjoy the first hot day of the year by taking my first bike ride of the season at Jones Beach. Each year, I worry that I’ll be too fearful to ride, but this is not that year. Riding isn’t the difficult part of riding a bike. Stopping & starting, getting on and getting off are the most vulnerable actions in my opinion. As I always say, so far, so good. Staying fit is so important to my studio practice because my work involves considerable standing, lifting, and stretching every day.

In the garden, one of my favorite azaleas is in bloom, the Apple Blossom Azalea. The buds are a lovely pink, and the flowers open with white petals and a delicate pink edging. To me, it’s a very girlie plant. I have a few of them in bloom at the moment around my woodland garden. The amount of flowering on each of the shrubs differs depending on the amount of sunshine the plant gets during the day, although all of them do flower in dappled shade.

This is a daily journal of my creative efforts as I prepare for my June 2026 solo exhibition in Poughkeepsie, NY, and my November exhibition in Chelsea, New York City.

I’m back working on the dahlia painting again. Now, I’m working on the colors and textures on the bottom of the painting, trying to make it darker with more color contrast. Working on not creating muddy colors, which can be tricky. I want the clearer, brighter colors in the center and then moderating them with each outward layer of petals until they merge with the background.

A few years ago, I moved a very little bright pink azalea to the end of the driveway. I was designing the garden to have non-competing colors during bloom times. Now, she’s flourishing and is giving new meaning to the term, curbside appeal.

This is a daily journal of my creative efforts as I prepare for my June 2026 solo exhibition in Poughkeepsie, NY, and my November exhibition in Chelsea, New York City.

There are some days that make you sad each year. So what I do is to invite people to come to see my garden, to share in the joy it delivers each year, the first week in May. There have been rhododendrons in bloom since the beginning of March, but this week is always spectacular. Such beauty is meant to be shared. Gardens bring down the stress in people’s lives. A perfect remedy for sad days.

This is a daily journal of my creative efforts as I prepare for my June 2026 solo exhibition in Poughkeepsie, NY, and my November exhibition in Chelsea, New York City.

Ever feel like you’re pulled in many directions at once? Things you want to do. How you want to spend your time? This is my time of the year for a target-rich environment. I’m in the studio, working on paintings for upcoming exhibitions. But, at the same time, Mother Nature isn’t waiting for me. My garden is in full, all-out peak viewing season. I love the spring. It gives me such a wonderful feeling of optimism and new opportunities. The colors are a feast for the eyes and make me happy to be alive. The lemon greens in the new foliage are affecting the color palette I’m working with in my studio. I hope everyone can take a moment to stop what they’re doing and look around them for something that is joyous and uplifting.

This is a daily journal of my creative efforts as I prepare for my June 2026 solo exhibition in Poughkeepsie, NY, and my November exhibition in Chelsea, New York City.

As an artist, I spend quite a bit of time analyzing the work before I commit to a painting, the difference between how a composition looks when created on the computer screen and how it looks once I put it onto canvas. Each day, I spend time looking at a piece before I begin painting and after I’m done for the day. Even after I’m finished with a painting, and even after I’ve signed a piece, I spend time looking at the work from many different angles and in different lighting situations. I also like to put the painting in places where I don’t expect it to be so that I “accidentally” see it without expecting to. Living with a work for some time after signing it, sometimes brings out my brushes again when I see something I hadn’t seen at the time. I’m not averse to taking one of my paintings off the wall and modifying it. In fact, I’ve often done that with my work. After all, it is my work, isn’t it?!

This is a daily journal of my creative efforts as I prepare for my June 2026 solo exhibition in Poughkeepsie, NY, and my November exhibition in Chelsea, New York City.

I may be nearing the end of working on this painting. Some say they’ve finished a painting. I feel that a painting isn’t finished, it’s just abandoned. The way to know that it is time to sign it and move on is that there are only minuscule changes at the end of each studio session. This is what’s known as an asymptote. Imagine that each day, as I begin painting, I am halfway finished with it. Continue forward through the days and weeks, and the realization is that it will never be finished since it will only ever be halfway done. There will always be another edge to soften, a color to shift, or detail to be added. At some point, the changes become infinitesimally small each day, so I make a decision to set the painting aside and begin the next piece. I am approaching that point with this painting.

While I’m working in my studio, my garden is working hard and making large gains, opening up new blooms every day. I’m loving all the pastel colors blooming in my deck planters at the moment. The rhododendron in the near distance was given to me as a gift when it was less than a foot tall, for hosting a garden tour for the Rhododendron Society a number of years ago. It clearly is happy to be here and so am I.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

Looking into the center of flowers has always fascinated me. There is so much architectural structure in each flower. Like there is in human faces, there are personalities in each. Today I took a trip to my local wholesale nursery to see what is coming into the retail stores this season. Since, as a landscape designer with a degree in ornamental horticulture, I have the business credentials to have accounts at the wholesale nurseries, I take advantage of the opportunity to see masses of color and form. It is part of the inspiration for my art, both indoors and out.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The dahlia painting has kept me both challenged and intrigued this week. I’m working toward a rich palette of purples, magentas, yellow-greens, and lemon yellows, but the colors have had a mind of their own — veins of orange where I wanted yellow, a wet layer of Permanent Rose bleeding into a fresh glaze and shifting the color scheme entirely. A compositional reset required painting opaque white and lemon yellow to recenter the flowers, leaving the center flatter and bolder than I intend for now. The background is starting to reflect the color range I’m hoping for, but I’m still finding my way. On days when the dahlia was too wet to continue, I returned to the magnolia — rethinking its palette too, toning down an angry red and wondering if an entirely new color scheme is what it wants. Through all of it, I’ve been using digital tools to test color and composition before committing paint to canvas, a habit rooted in my decades with computer graphics.

In the garden, forsythia are singing, grape muscari are in bloom, the camellia is flowering beside its aluminum print twin, and four yards of mulch arrived exactly where I needed it. Two successes in one day — studio and garden alike.

Click here to read all the week’s Studio Glimpses

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

Another interesting day in the studio. Since the dahlia painting was still wet from yesterday, I took it off the easel and put back the magnolia that I last worked on in March. That was when I overpainted it with thick impasto to cover up the irregularity in the canvas weave that had become more prominent each time I painted. Now that it is fully dry, I need to bring back the original composition. Now, I’m also rethinking the color palette I want to work with on this piece. It was a very angry red in the corners, and I’ve toned that down, but I imagine I might even go with a completely different color scheme.

In the garden today on this nice warm spring day, I had 4 yards of mulch delivered. The driver reminded me that he’d delivered it last year, after I’d had the deer fence put in. When he arrived, he couldn’t fit the truck into the garden since the fencing company hadn’t specified the gates to be wide enough for a pickup truck. I told him that after his problem with the delivery last year, I had the fence company install a second gate so I could get the mulch delivered in the garden and not on the road as they had to last year. He did a great job and was able to place it exactly where I wanted it now that the double gates are wide enough for his truck. Two successes today, one in the studio and one in the garden.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

In the studio, I was glazing Cadmium yellow light and Titanium White over the dahlia petals to lighten the center. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the paint was still slightly wet when I worked on it, so the damp Permanent Rose tainted the new layer. Now I have an entirely new color scheme than what I was aiming for, and I’m trying to decide whether I like this direction or not. I keep walking past it to see it from different angles. I try to surprise myself by purposely not glancing at it and finally swinging my head around to catch it in a glance. The next few days of painting will be interesting since it will help to define what the painting wants to become.

On another note, this forsythia at the front of my driveway is singing songs of happiness to me this week.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

Back in the studio again after a week of feeling under the weather, and I went back to working on the dahlia painting. I’m still defining the various petals. I don’t usually choose to paint flowers with harsh spikes, but at the moment, this felt like a feature that was right to accentuate. In my garden, the brash pink Rhododendron ‘Milestone’ is partially open. I bought this from the American Rhododendron Society in 2001. And yes, I have a database for my plants, too, like I have a database for my art. Different programs though.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

I’m often asked about how I store & stage my brushes. Since I’m a gardener, I wanted to use flowerpots to hold my brush collection. I wanted to be able to easily get the brushes into the pots so they’d stand up and not flop over. I tried a variety of pebbles, beach sand, and driveway gravel. None of them worked well. But finally, I found that aquarium gravel is smooth, so it does not hurt the fish. With a bit of a poke, I could easily get the brushes in and out of the flower posts without damaging the handles or spreading gravel all over the table. I’ve been using this system for years and it makes me happy to have the garden spirit in the studio.

On my daily walk in the garden today I saw these lemon yellow Mahonia bealei flowers. Once the flowers get fertilized and are finished blooming, the seed pods turn a lovely color of Cerulean blue. Later in the summer, when the seeds are ripe, the birds take over that part of the garden and have a bacchanal style feast with all the squawking, squeaking, singing, and cackling you could possibly imagine. It’s quite fun to happen upon their party even when you haven’t been invited.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

I committed a radical act in the studio today. I turned the painting upside down to see the balance of the petals. And guess what! I liked it better that way so I worked on it the entire session, repainting the colors and petal structure. A great act of courage on my part. I usually have the entire composition worked out before I begin a painting and make minor adjustments along the way. This was a major change for me. And I’m so happy with the new look. There might be more of that in my future.

In the garden, I noticed that I have different types of Galanthus, AKA Snowdrops, in bloom at the moment. The petal structure is quite different in the closeup photos I took to try to identify them. On the web, I found a few sites that discuss the different varieties of Galanthus. These minor bulbs bloom so early in the season and so close to the ground that it takes some perseverance to notice the delicate differences. Well worth the trouble though.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

I can’t believe that I forgot to take a photo of the oil painting WIP on the easel today after working on it for hours in the afternoon. I have a photo of my palette, but not one of the current state of the painting. Too funny! I also have a photo of the side garden, which is currently filled with blue-blooming Chionodoxa, known as glory-of-the-snow, and assorted daffodil cultivars. This is the view from my kitchen window, and it changes all season depending on many factors. In the big planter, I have a curly willow planted in a pot within the big container since it would otherwise expand so big with sucker shoots that it could cause problems. I take cuttings to root for people who would enjoy having this plant. Notice also, on the garage wall, there are two aluminum prints of my artwork. Those aluminum prints have been hanging there for a few years now, and I get to enjoy them from the view inside my own home.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

A beautiful spring day. The first time the temps reached into the 70s for the season and the first day without a jacket. I strolled out to my garden to gain some calmness and inspiration. I always find myself calming down when I walk around my garden, seeing the many small changes each day. The Jasminum nudiflorum, commonly called winter jasmine, was in bloom. The lilac colored Rhododendron mucronulatum finally popped into bloom. It. Was a little later than usual. This plant was on the property when I bought the house in 1989, and I’ve moved it a few times, like I do with many of my plants. It loves where it lives now and so do I. In the studio, I immersed myself in another type of flower. This dahlia oil-painting is starting to come to life. It’s beginning to speak to me and tell me what it plans to be.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.

Before I went to the studio today, I took a walk in my garden to see what was new. I found that the first rhododendron is in bloom this year. It is the Rhododendron mucronulatum, ‘Cornell Pink”. Also, the Mahonia bealei has come into a full bloom of brilliant yellow. When the flowers have been fertilized, the seed pods turn blue. When they ripen in the summer, in one single day, the garden is chirping with flocks of birds gathering for a delicious lunch. And then they’re gone until next year. In the studio, I used a thin glaze of oil paint with a 50/50% Galgyd/Gamsol medium to begin to form the flower. This is a very exciting time for a painting. Nothing but possibilities are ahead of you and none of the mistakes or obstacles that whill show up later.

These daily studio notes lead toward my 2026 solo exhibitions in New York City and  Poughkeepsie, NY.