For my 2025 watercolor year, I was primarily focused on botanical illustration studies. Yet I accumulated an extensive collection of photoreferences, including inspiring landscapes of the local countryside. I painted two of them and added a night city scene of Prague to them.

In my botanical paintings, I explored a range of textures and themes. All of them feature flowers from my garden. Drawing and painting from nature helps to discover more color variations within a subject than if I were to paint from a photo reference.

Botanical Pintings of 2025

Botanical painting usually takes 10 times as long as other paintings because of the high level of detail. It starts with a detailed drawing, though, which is a crucial stage of exploring the subject of painting.

One of my favorite works of 2025 became a botanical painting of a squash. At the beginning of November, on one of the local farms, I found a curiously shaped squash. It inspired me to paint its “portrait”. I am glad I could preserve this collaborative work of a farmer and nature in a third form – art.

Many quick sketches of 2025 became sketches of the surroundings of Lake Chelan in Washington. Some sketches that took longer to paint were more like a study of my favorite plants. Some people might call them paintings, but I don’t consider them finished; to me, they are still sketches.

Many of the paintings were part of my continuing education. I left them out since they don’t represent my style.

Please, view the gallery and let me know what you liked. Which painting evoked feelings you would like to share?