A Secret Garden to Paint This Winter

Imagine spending a winter morning surrounded by lavender, sunlit greenery, and the rich colors of a summer garden—with a paintbrush in your hand.

This January, I’m inviting a small group to join me for Secret Garden: A Gouache Foundations Course at Create Gallery & Frames in Garden City. Over three Saturday mornings, we’ll explore how to turn a reference photograph into a painting, step by step.

If you’ve found yourself saying, “I’d love to paint, but I wouldn’t know where to begin,” this is a place to start. And if you’ve taken an introductory class, bought supplies, and wished for someone to help you keep going, I’ve designed this course with you in mind, too.

 More than one finished painting
My hope is that you leave with a garden painting you’re happy to bring home—and a process you can use again.Working from photographs helped me learn to understand placement, shadows, and the relationships between shapes. With practice, those decisions became more intuitive. Whether I’m painting outdoors or in the studio, that experience continues to inform how I see.

We’ll explore those foundations together through my guided grid approach, learning how to break a scene into manageable areas. We’ll begin with a light background layer, then use pale paint to place the main shapes before building stronger colors and details.

You don’t have to describe every leaf to suggest a beautiful garden. Sometimes a few thoughtful marks, a change in color, and a well-placed shadow can say so much.

What we’ll explore together
Our first Saturday: See, mix, and place.
We’ll explore color mixing and the color wheel, then look at how a composition fits together. We’ll use the rule of thirds for placement and identify three layers of depth: foreground, middle ground, and background. From there, we’ll begin blocking in the garden’s largest shapes.

Our second Saturday: Build depth and layers.
We’ll develop light and dark values, explore complementary colors, and build the overlapping garden beds. I’ll demonstrate ways to suggest lavender and foliage with expressive brushwork, with time for you to practice and ask questions.

Our third Saturday: Add light and finish.
We’ll refine shadows, add highlights and selected flower details, and explore edges and gentle blending. We’ll also practice stepping back to see what a painting needs—and when to let it rest.

Throughout the course, I’ll paint alongside you and offer individual guidance. The small-group format gives us room to work through questions together.

A little summer color for your winter
Our reference is a garden filled with lavender, sweeping green borders, and burgundy foliage. I chose it for its cheerful colors and the way its overlapping shapes help us learn to create depth.

We’ll work toward an 11 × 15-inch gouache painting over nine hours of instruction. Students will purchase their own supplies, and I’ll provide a supply list so you’ll have materials to continue practicing at home.

The course meets at Create Gallery & Frames in Garden City on Saturdays, January 23, January 30, and February 6, 2027, from 10 a.m.–1 p.m.

Give yourself—or someone you love—time to create
This course would make a thoughtful holiday gift for someone who has been longing to paint. It’s also something you can put on your own wish list: three mornings set aside to learn, enjoy color, and spend time creating in good company.

Early-bird tuition is $225 through November 30, 2026. Regular tuition is $245 beginning December 1. Supplies are purchased separately.

Registration will open soon, and an interest list is already forming. To receive **early access to registration, email me at [email protected]. Use “Secret Garden” in the subject line. I’ll add you to the list and send you the signup link when it becomes available.

Joining the list does reserve a paid place as long as you finalize once the class goest live. I’d love to welcome you into this garden—and help you discover what you can create.