Savoring Summer and Embracing Creative Play

Hello my friend!

Summer has arrived in full force and my garden continues to enchant me every day.

(Still) Loving Houseplants: 10 of the Easiest Plants to Grow and a Growing Houseplant Obsession

Last month I wrote about my love of houseplants, how they inspire my art and help me get through our Wisconsin winters.

Putting together that post was so much fun and although I was already enjoying tending my plants, it sparked a renewed obsession

books, houseplantsAnne ButeraFebruary 24, 2024houseplant books, houseplant portraits, houseplant paintings, watercolor paintings of houseplants, houseplant watercolor paintings, botanical artist, artist gardener, houseplants, growing houseplants, easy houseplants to grow, fiddle leaf figs, growing cuttings, propagating plants through cuttings, rooting cuttings in water Comments

Seasonal Cycles, Sharing Indoor Gardening Inspiration and Why I Grow Houseplants

Every time I went into the kitchen this week, I visited spring.

My baby* Hoya lacunosa is blooming on a shelf above the sink.

joy, studio, books, life, houseplantsAnne ButeraJanuary 27, 2024houseplants, botanical artist, artist gardener, artist studios, plant filled studio, seasonal cycles, Hoya lacunosa, growing houseplants, growing plants indoors, a studio filled with plants, poinsettia painting, watercolor poinsettia, painting process, art inspiration, painting inspiration, gardening inspiration, gardening books, garden books, houseplant books, spider plants, Thanksgiving cactus, Anne Butera, my development as an artist, my development as a gardener, my favorite garden books, Tovah Martin, Elvin McDonald, James Underwood Crockett, night-blooming cereus, plant stories, connections to plants, sharing plants, growing plants from cuttings, rooting cuttings in water, fiddle leaf figs, pothos, pothos cuttings, impatiens, growing impatiens inside, scented geraniums, growing scented geraniums inside Comments

Painting Violas and Pansies: in My Studio with Spring Garden Inspiration

For me, springtime in the garden always means violas and pansies. They’re some of the first things to show up at garden centers and one of the first things to bloom in my garden.

April 2021 Garden Tour

I was blown away by the responses to last week’s post about social media. Thank you to everyone who left a comment, sent an email, responded on IG or shared thoughts over at Skillshare. It seems a lot of us are a bit dissatisfied right now. Today, though, I thought I’d post something a little lighter!

Growing Inspiration: Dahlias

Dahlias! Oh, dahlias. They’re one of those swoon-inducing flowers you’re sure to see when scrolling around on Instagram or Pinterest. Other than sunflowers, they have the biggest flowers I know.

growing inspiration: tomatoes

So far my Growing Inspiration posts have been about flowers. Of course I love flowers. I love growing them and painting them. I love cutting them for the house and watching the butterflies and bees and hummingbirds visit them in the garden.

But one of my very favorite things about the garden is eating from it.

In the Garden Lately

I’ve been spending as much time as possible in my garden.

The dogs love being outside, too. During the week Jude goes with Matthias to his shop and Charlie stays home with me until I need to leave for my job at the library.

garden, joy, inspiration, sketchbooks, paintings, artAnne ButeraJune 14, 2019garden, gardening, the purpose of a garden, artist gardener, inspiration, garden inspiration, garden flowers, harvest, harvesting herbs, preserving herbs, preserving the harvest, perserving chives in vinegar, infusing chives in vinegar, sketchbooks, colored pencil, strathmore 400 series softcover journal, Prismacolor, garden projects, garden as sanctuary, gardeners' relationships with their gardens, Anne Butera, watercolor, watercolors, botanical art, botanical watercolor, columbine, yellow columbine, watercolor illustrations, watercolor columbine illustration, roses, head over heels rose, in my garden, garden studio, portable studio, mixing colors, greyhounds, retired racing greyhounds, window boxes, windowbox planters, cats, rescue cats, black and white cats, herbs, raised beds, cinder block raised beds, fuchsias, lemon balm, lemon balm for tea, drying lemon balm for tea, using herbs from the garden Comments

Keep Going

This week I painted bleeding hearts with the paint I mixed last week.

It’s lovely to be working with flowers from the garden again. But it’s also been a bit frustrating trying to get back into a groove of art-making and gardening and all the other stuff that life demands.

Allowing Do-Overs

Over the past week I was painting tulips. I’ve painted tulips before. Even earlier this year from a grocery store bouquet.

This time I was so excited to be working on a painting with flowers from my garden. The first time this season.

Summer Love Songs and Savoring Each Day

It's the last day of August. I can't quite believe it. Throughout the month I've been noticing the beginnings of fall. It seems early this year.

Summer's my season and although autumn can be beautiful its arrival always makes me a bit melancholy.

Watercolor Sunflowers from Start to Finish

Sunflowers embody the spirit of summertime. Of buzzing bees and hazy days. Shrill cicadas and fluffy white clouds floating in blue skies. They're some of my favorite plants to grow in my garden. I love the flowers, so many shapes and colors and sizes, but what I like even more is that they feed the bees and the birds.

My garden is filled with flowers calling me to paint them, but right now it's the sunflowers I couldn't resist.

studio, paintingsAnne ButeraAugust 10, 2018watercolor process, art process, studio, art studio, artist gardener, sunflowers, sunflower painting, watercolor painting, botanical watercolor, artist process, a peek in the studio Comments

How I use My Garden Part 1: Creating a Portable Studio

A friend recently mentioned she was curious about how I use my garden and the things I grow in it. Her question got me thinking.

She's right, it's interesting to learn how other people use their outdoor spaces. And I love seeing garden bouquets that combine unusual plants and flowers and reading garden-fresh recipes.

I talk a lot about the fact that my garden inspires my art, but I don't really explain how that happens.

notes from the studio