Why every portrait has a garden around it.

Before I painted houses, I designed the gardens around them.

I have been a landscape designer, a children’s librarian, and for as long as I can remember, a gardener. My grandmothers taught me about their flowers. My mother taught me to simply be with them. My sons and I took wildflower walks. Gardening with my grandchildren is the best, and I love when we ask each other what our favorite plant is. Impossible! So we pick our favorite for that moment.

So when someone sends me photographs of their house, I look at the yard as hard as I look at the roofline. The hydrangeas by the porch, the rose that has taken over the fence, the tree that turns first in the fall. The border design includes garden or favorite flowers.

I paint in watercolor and ink, from your photographs, in my studio in Beverly, Massachusetts. Each portrait takes several weeks. Before I begin, we agree on the layout together, and where the garden ends and the border starts.

Flowers are wonderful storytellers. So are houses. I like painting the two together.

Diane