Summer’s colors brought to life> Belfast gardener paints her flowers all winter long

As the gray month of March melts into April, I long for color — the yellow of the first forsythia blooms, the red maple buds unfurling with their burgundy leaves, the red of the first tulip flowers. And oh! The green, green, green, green!

One smart gardener, Linda Jewell of Belfast, planned for these pallid months last summer, stockpiling drawings and photographs of her garden flowers so that she could use them for fodder for her watercolor paintings this winter.

Last week, Jewell showed me her collection, and as I oooed and ahhed over each one, she said, “That one was fun; that one was a lot of fun; I had a good time with this one … ,” leaving me with the impression that there wasn’t one that she hadn’t delighted in painting.

Given the quality and scope of her work, it comes as a great surprise that being an artist isn’t something Jewell has always aspired to be. In fact, it all started just a short time ago with an adult education course in watercolors.

According to Jewell, “If anyone told me six years ago that I’d be painting, I’d have laughed hysterically at them!”

But the artist has found her creative niche, drawing Maine landscapes, coastal scenes and floral subjects. She has won several awards for her work, and is so prolific that what she creates in her home studio in Belfast provides her with a comfortable enough income that she has never had to return to the office job she left to pursue her hobby-turned-career.

Jewell’s sweet personality and easy temperament are enough to convince anyone that trying one’s hand at painting isn’t as petrifying as some of us believe. She tells stories of her beginnings, her successes and failures and, most importantly, how much she enjoys the process of crafting each piece.

Looking at her floral paintings — such as a brilliant pink cosmos that looks so real it’s practically fragrant, or a beautiful painting of hydrangea blooms that gives new meaning to the color white — even the casual observer can see that Jewell enjoys the artistic process.

“First, I lightly sketch [the subject] in pencil,” Jewell says, describing the watercolor process. “Some people sketch meticulously, but I prefer to sketch lightly and do the drawing with the brush.

“Some people wet the paper and let it dry completely to shrink it. I staple my paper to a special foam board. The stapling allows the paper to dry flat, and it avoids buckling. The other thing I do is paint on a block of watercolor paper — which is good for traveling.”

The block is like a pad of paper, only it is glued on all four sides so that the paper is held in place. Once Jewell has finished her painting on the top piece of paper, she uses a razor to free it, revealing a fresh page below.

The block of paper gets a workout in the summer months when Jewell and her husband, John, take daylong excursions along the coast.

When it comes to floral paintings, it’s important to Jewell that her watercolors portray the actual color of her subjects. “I try to use only the paints that have the best color fasteners,” she says. “Some [poor qualilty] paints fade rapidly — sometimes in just two or three weeks. The paints I use have a high light-fast quality.”

Jewell finds that her inspiration comes from a variety of places — one being the gardens around her own home.

“I’m planting now with the fact in mind that I might want to paint from them in the future,” Jewell says of her garden flowers. She has planted delphiniums, coreopsis, shasta daisies, lupines, day lilies and roses for that purpose, although some of the roses she has planted haven’t wintered over.

“I like the florals because I start with three or five flowers and then all of a sudden start tucking them in all over the place,” Jewell says. The result is often either a beautiful, large close-up image of a variety of flowers in a bouquet or a miniature painting of flowers in a vase.

Of course, living in midcoast Maine for 30 years has had an effect on her style and subject matter.

“John and I also go on little safaris [along the coast] with our camera and my sketch pad,” Jewell explains. “I try to take notes, and if I see a sea gull or if I smell a rose, I try to record it. It helps me get back in touch with that spot. It helps me get in touch with the subject.”

There won’t be any subjects from the vegetable garden in Jewell’s paintings, however. One too many run-ins with snacking groundhogs, skunks, raccoons and slugs have put the kibosh in the Jewell family’s veggie patch.

Nonetheless, the flower garden and the coast provide hours of painting opportunities. I asked her if she sometimes spends a long time on one picture and then isn’t satisfied with it, even if other people love it. She replied, “I have a whole drawer full of those. I look back at them to see progress and improvement.

“One famous artist said, `You paint one to sell and 20 go under the bed.’ Sometimes I have a wonderful image in mind, and then I try to paint it, and it just doesn’t come out.”

Anyone who has designed a garden on paper and then planted it can relate to this phenomenon. One thing is for sure, though — all of Jewell’s work captures the essence of summer and provides a viable placebo for the flowers and color we long for during these weeks of waiting.

Linda Jewell, along with Gail White of Northport and Anita Blake of Belfast, founded the Passi-River Artisans. The group of artists in the Passagassawakeag River region promote fine art in the Belfast area and provide an outlet for local artists to showcase their work through annual shows and sales. Jewell may be contacted at her Belfast home-studio at 338-2476.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, % MaineWeekend, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402-1329. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.