The Wheelbarrow: Shari Blaukopf's February Newsletter
Published about 1 month ago • 7 min read
February 2026
LOADS OF VIEWS, REVIEWS & EVENTS
Winter is my favourite time to catch up after a busy year. To finish sketches from my travels, to test drive new tools and materials, and to chip away at the pile of art books I scored at various thrift shops. And, the biggest luxury of all, to work on new projects—including wheelbarrow paintings.
In Montreal, it’s also been a banner winter for snow. The white stuff began falling in November and has been relentless ever since. Great if you're a skier or like to paint winter scenes, which I do. But with brutally cold temperatures lasting many weeks, my car studio was never an option—not that this slowed me down. Instead, I went to plan B and took lots of photos, from which I painted my snow scenes in studio.
What else happened since the last issue of The Wheelbarrow? Well, too much to cram into this poor little newsletter. But I was lucky enough to see some exhibitions at MOMA and The Met in New York City and to teach in Tucson, Arizona. I'll share a bit about both below.
Finally, is it too late to say Happy New Year? Well, I’ll risk it. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you find plenty time for creative rejuvenation throughout 2026.
Shari
FROM MY SKETCHBOOK
Wrangling Cactuses
First of all, I know that the plural is cacti. But you never want to sound like a city slicker at Tanque Verde. That’s the dude ranch in Tucson, Arizona where I’ve taught for the past four years with Madeline Island School of the Arts. I had lots of returning students this January, and I understand perfectly why they come back. But one of the things I love best about Tanque Verde is watching first-time students encounter the strange and subtle wonders of the Sonoran Desert.
Tucson Botanical Gardens
Even though it was my fourth rodeo at Tanque Verde, I’m still finding new subjects and fresh perspectives at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Both of my groups sketched desert vignettes with me, since vignettes look so great on the page. I also took the first group into the Cacti and Succulents of the World section, and the second group into the barrio section of Frida's garden—where I spotted a wheelbarrow!
Agua Caliente Park
The unexpected palm trees poke up on the horizon long before you arrive. And when you finally get there, the riddle is solved. Agua Caliente Park is that rare thing—an oasis whose multiple ponds nourish the palms and make them possible, and whose watery reflections make them a delight to paint.
Originally a health resort, then a cattle ranch and now a public park, Agua Caliente attracts all kinds of birds and wildlife, including Tilley hat-wearing bird watchers and sketchers. The flock of birders was even bigger that day, as a rare Northern Saw-whet Owl had been spotted in a tree right above where we painted. (For the record, I’m still not sure we saw it. We lacked binoculars and this beautiful owl is very tiny. Feel free to google it.)
It was overcast when we sketched, but this only added to the day’s learning experience. Given the complex layers of palms, water and reflections, it was a great opportunity to work with value studies and a limited palette.
(And BTW, I’ll be back at Tanque Verde Ranch next January. If you’d like to join me, see details below.)
ON EXHIBITION
Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Through April 5, 2026
If you’re planning a trip to New York over the next several weeks, I urge you catch this wonderful show at The Met. I confess, I had never heard of the Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1942), but sometimes ignorance is exactly what you want: no preconceived notions or ideas to get in the way of discovering someone entirely new.
Schjerfbeck is a giant in Finland, and has influenced generations of artists in her homeland. You can see why. She had outsize confidence, skill and vision at a very early age, which propelled her from winning top prizes at the Finnish Art Society to studies in Paris.
The show is hung in a narrow circular gallery, with paintings on opposite walls, enabling you to stroll across her entire artistic journey, from a young and promising girl to an established master. I was especially drawn to her small portraits and self-portraits, which she painted regularly. By looking only at these, you can see her stylistic development from realism to impressionism and to a gradual loosening and abstraction.
Self-Portrait, 1912. Oil on canvas
Self-Portrait with Red Spot, 1944. Oil on canvas
FROM MY PAINT DRAWER
Prussian Blue
Prussian Blue has a permanent spot in all my palettes, and I expect this pigment will do some heavy lifting on my upcoming teaching trip to Vietnam. It is, after all, my go-to blue for mixing vibrant greens.
In my Tucson workshops, I asked students to try and replicate the greens and blues of desert vegetation by painting swatches with every blue and yellow in their palettes. Another valuable exercise is to create swatches from a single blue, as I do above, with Prussian Blue. Note how mixing it with yellows gives you the brightest greens, while mixing it with Burnt Sienna yields more muted vegetal tones.
Prussian Blue is also gorgeous on its own, as you can see in the background colour for the daffodils, below. It’s in the same family of cool blues as Phthalo Blue, but is a little less strident.
FROM MY BOOKSHELF
MASTERING COLOR AND DESIGN
IN WATERCOLOR
by Christopher Schink
30 projects — how to design space, lines, shapes, and values, select a basic palette, and handle color mixtures (first published in 1981)
I heard the name Christopher Schink during my early years of studying watercolour and then promptly forgot it—that is, until I recently spied his Mastering Color and Design in Watercolor at a used book store. The title and subtitle tell you exactly why I instantly fell in love with this book. In fact, I can’t think of a more informative and insightful book on colour and design for watercolourists.
As with every book on technique, I went straight to the section on colour, and couldn’t put it down. For some, the definition of a page-turner is a Louise Penny mystery. For me, it’s Schink's sections on sorting pigments into transparent, opaque and staining groups. Honestly, I couldn’t tear myself away. If you’re an experienced watercolourist, none of this is new information. But Schink manages to make it fresh, insightful and gripping. He is that gifted as a writer and teacher.
The book gave me tons of ideas to try out, and I immediately made a chart of the colours he uses so I can experiment with his favourite mixes. Stay tuned—some of my experiments may appear in the next issue of The Wheelbarrow.
Mastering Color and Design in Watercolor is out of print, but you can track it down at used book stores or online. It could change how you paint.
I guess it's my year for painting corn, since I have two corn paintings on exhibition this winter/spring. My watercolour "October Corn" is currently on display at the Helson Gallery in Georgetown, Ontario, alongside 24 other Canadian watercolours. All 25 paintings will soon after start their journey to England, as part of the 100 CSPWC paintings that make up the Royal Collection Trust Project from His Majesty King Charles III’s Royal Collection. As you can imagine, it is an honour to have one of my works included in this show and collection.
It is a also a huge honour to have my watercolour "Rustling Corn" selected for this year’s AWS International Exhibition in New York City. Since you can submit only one painting to this juried show, it's hard to anticipate what will stand out among all the excellent entries. I chose “Rustling Corn” because I was satisfied with the result and hoped the jurors would agree. In the last issue of The Wheelbarrow, you may remember that I posted the planning sketch for this painting (below) as part of an exercise with Raw Umber and Sepia.
MY NEWEST ONLINE COURSE
I barely had time to put my garden to bed this year before the first snowflakes fell. Just as I was cutting the few remaining perennials and hydrangeas, I noticed their beautiful and subtle colours, and their delicate curling shapes. So, instead of dumping them in the compost, I carefully placed a few in a bucket and brought them into my studio to sketch.
In my newest online course, "Sketching a Winter Garden in Watercolour," I share the way I approach winter garden plants in my own sketchbook. You’ll learn how to observe closely, simplify what you see, and translate these cold-weather beauties into an expressive narrative all your own. As always, this is a 3-hour course that you can follow at your own pace and watch as often as you like. Plus, you'll be able to share your work and see what others in the course have created.
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be back next year at Hudson River Valley Art Workshops, where together we’ll rediscover the historic architecture and landscapes of upstate New York. Weather permitting, we’ll combine studio and plein air work, focusing on telling a story through the choices we make in composing a scene, using elements that together evoke a time and place.
I love Bar Harbor and its surrounding so much, I’m returning for a fourth time next fall. Beautiful in all seasons, Bar Harbor is most spectacular in its fiery autumn robes. We’ll hop around Mount Desert Island to find the most sketchable spots—scenic villages and secluded harbours, with their fishing boats at anchor, plus maritime gardens and rugged coastal scenes animated with jagged rocks and crashing waves. We’ll find a wealth of scenes to capture in your sketchbooks!
Join me next January, when I’ll once again give two workshops at Tanque Verde Ranch. I hope to introduce you to the varied and stunning Sonoran Desert, and to the many plant, animal and human friends that keep me coming back to this magical desert kingdom year after year.
