Blooming Whimsy with Helen Dardik

I recently had the chance to attend Helen Dardik’s “Blooming Whimsy” retreat at The Smiley Manse! My illustration agent, Jennifer Nelson, hosts the most amazing retreats at her gorgeous home. These retreats are like summer camp for artists: days filled with uninterrupted time for creative experimentation and connecting with other creatives, all surrounded by the beautiful, scenic landscape of Springfield, Vermont.

We spent five days learning from Helen all about her process using watercolor, gouache, and acryla gouache. This retreat came at the perfect time, since I’ve been using analog materials more this year than in the past six years of freelancing. Last year, I was feeling really dissatisfied with my artwork, so I made the switch to watercolor and gouache painting, which has been such a creatively fulfilling experience. I’ve been searching for ways to bring more fun into my process and gain a better understanding of my materials, so this retreat was just what I needed. And of course, I’m also a huge fan of Helen’s work! Her use of bright colors, playful characters, and lush florals are so inspiring.

Here’s a list of materials I used throughout the week:

• Arches watercolor paper (I’m never going back to any other watercolor paper — RIP to my wallet)

• Princeton Velvet Touch brushes

• Kuretake watercolors (these are more like something in between gouache and watercolor. They are so nicely saturated and buttery :) )

• Holbein Acryla Gouache

• Daniel Smith watercolors

• Ceramic palette

For our first workshop, we warmed up with a single floral illustration. Using a peony from the garden as inspiration, Helen showed us how she approaches her materials. First, she chooses her color palette and lets the flower take shape as she starts with the petals. She drops various hues into a single bloom and lets the colors move and bleed together.

I found her confident approach to her work really inspiring, since she typically works with little to no sketching. As a meticulous planner and recovering perfectionist, I found this way of working intimidating at first. If you’ve read my previous posts, you know I always sketch, do color roughs, and plan quite a bit before touching a final painting. Helen’s loose, intuitive approach pushed me way outside that comfort zone.

After warming up with a few blooms, I found I really enjoyed letting go of the plan and letting the piece emerge organically. I really love the variety of color Helen adds to each shape, and I wanted to bring that quality into my pieces:

After getting our feet wet, we moved on to creating “Forest Floor” paintings filled with toadstools, little garden critters, and more florals. Helen started with a single red toadstool and gradually added botanicals around it, building on what we learned the previous day.

She explained how she uses unexpected color choices rather than sticking to a subject's literal palette. Like adding pink lines to green leaves and dropping in shades of opera pink and smalt blue to a mushroom stem, to create a more interesting subject.

I started with a quick thumbnail to give myself a starting point and formed my image around the red toadstool.

The next day we focused on monochromatic paintings, which gave us a chance to just focus on line and the negative space moving across the canvas.

We started by dropping water randomly around the page, which would be another exercise in letting go of control. Next, we moved through the page in a loose stream of consciousness, layering shapes and subjects on top of one another. Helen shared that she loves the tension between clean, well-defined shapes and loose, undefined marks, and I have to agree!

Helen suggested we draw from our own personal “folklore,” meaning the images and subjects from our personal history we return to again and again. For me, that meant a cat, garden critters like a snail or butterfly, a teapot, and, of course, flowers: the things that always seem to show up when I draw.

Helen kept reminding us to trust that it will work out. I think there’s a lot to learn from pushing through a painting to the finish, rather than abandoning it the moment it feels difficult. (I always call this stage the “ugly phase,” and it happens every time I make something!) Everyone has an inner critic, and it only gets easier to quiet with practice.

After gaining more confidence with the unplanned approach, I worked on some loose floral pieces, adding botanicals as I moved along the page:

The next day we painted colorful, whimsical mobiles, working from shapes Helen provided.

I chose a cat, of course!

That evening, we also did a figure drawing session together:

For the final demo, Helen showed us how she uses her figure drawing sketches as a jumping-off point, translating observational studies into her own stylized world. It was amazing to watch her turn the figure studies into beautiful forest nymphs.

Using my own observational drawings from the night before, I free-painted my own nymph. By the last day, I was painting much more confidently than I had at the beginning of the week and felt more at ease letting the paint do what it wanted to do.

After coming home from the retreat, I felt so refreshed, motivated, and excited to make more art! Being busy making a living doesn’t often allow for five straight days to just experiment, which made this retreat so special. As I’m sure many other illustrators working in commercial art can relate, it’s hard to give myself the time to make purely for the joy of it. This retreat was a great reminder to me of why I fell in love with making art in the first place. Big thanks to Helen for sharing her process so generously, and to Jennifer for creating a space where all of this could happen <3