Paint your garden: Portland artist has a colorful idea for flower lovers isolating at home - oregonlive.com

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Typically, Portland author and artist Amy Stewart would be writing now or speaking before literary crowds to promote one of her bestselling books, like “Flower Confidential” and “The Drunken Botanist.”

But when the coronavirus forced everyone to stay at home, she invented a new plan: She pulled out her watercolor sketches, many inspired by long walks in Washington Park, and she started teaching online classes to encourage people to paint images of their gardens.

Stewart, who moved to Portland in 2017, lives a few blocks from the 410-acre park, which envelops the city’s flora highlights: The Portland Japanese Garden, International Rose Test Garden and Hoyt Arboretum plus wooded hiking trails.

Over the seasons, she’s discovered plants are always in bloom.

“I’ve been around the horticultural world long enough to know that this was no accident,” says Stewart.

She jokes she appointed herself the unofficial artist-in-residence of Washington Park and, with that honor, she has returned day after day to capture thoughtful, spontaneous drawings in her sketchbook.

“I highly recommend the self-appointed artist’s residency,” she says. “You get all the benefits of a traditional artist’s residency without any of the paperwork.”

She has been painting in oil for 20 years, and with ink and watercolor over the last five years because the tools are portable and she can easily document a scene, inside or out.

She shares her appreciation for these mediums on Skillshare and tells her online students that drawing and painting are technical skills, not dependent on talent.

“Twenty years ago, I couldn’t draw anything,” she says. “I’ve been taking classes continuously since then.”

American-grown flower advocate Debra Prinzing confesses she’s not a natural watercolorist, but her art has improved with Stewart’s teaching style, which “demystifies how to mix watercolors and create your palette,” says Prinzing.

“Amy advocates for her students to use the act of observing details, shapes and forms -- all of which are captured first in pencil; then in waterproof ink; then in watercolor paint,” says Prinzing. “She wants her students to convey the ‘experience’ of seeing or being in a garden, rather than making a literal copy of what they see."

For anyone who’s interested in keeping a garden and nature journal, here’s are Amy Stewart’s five tips:

Don’t get hung up on perfection. A sketchbook is for making a record of a moment in time when you were there, closely observing what’s around you. Focus on sketching quickly and moving on. If it takes you two hours to do a drawing, you just won’t get out and do it as much. But if you can dash something off in 20 minutes, that can become a daily practice.

Emphasize values, meaning lights and darks. The difference between the lightest parts of the drawing and the darkest parts are what gives it drama and interest. Try taking a snapshot of your artwork and converting it to black and white. Do you actually see areas that are totally white and totally black, or is it mostly a mix of grays? I use black ink and very dark purple watercolor mixtures for shadows to really give my drawings depth.

Go for vibrant color. Watercolor is not meant to be a pale medium. Practice making rich mixtures of color and dropping in a little extra color while the paper is still wet to give it extra punch.

Have a range of go-to greens. Greens are tricky, and most painters struggle with them. But if your greens all look the same, your garden and nature sketches won’t be as lively. At a minimum, you need a yellow-green, a medium, natural green (like sap green), and a blue-green. I also like to have what I call a “fake green,” which is a bright, traffic-light green that you might not think is found in nature, but it is. For that I might use viridian, phthalo green or Hooker’s green. With a range like that, you can have very obvious differences between sunlit grass, small shrubs, conifers in the distance, and so on.

Go for a mix of closeups, like a flower or a leaf, and more pulled-back scenes. Include structures when you can: the corner of a building, a staircase, a chair. Those kinds of details give a human scale to your artwork.

— As told to Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072

jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman

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