After spending most of her life flower arranging with the purest of colours, this artist is now creating a few new hues of her own.

Judith (Judi) Davidson is having her first solo show as an Artist in the Garden, at the Masterworks Rose Garden Gallery in the Botanical Gardens on Friday evening.

As a retirement gift to herself, she began painting four-and-a-half-years ago.

Her work is mostly of mixed media ? acrylics and oils ? and she uses brushes and a palette knife to create her landscapes.

Some are plein air paintings and cover sights such as the view from Dockyard, a ?Little Red Boat?, at Cavello Bay, the rock formations at low tide at Warwick Long Bay, eastern views of Non Such Island, Elbow Beach at sunrise.

But with all of this and the different locations, she said: ?I love, love, love the South Shore.?

Her love of Bermuda was further inspired by her father, the late W. J. (Jimmy) Williams, who was the former director of Tourism and Permanent Secretary.

?On Sundays, as part of his job as director, we would usually go to a tourist attraction like the Aquarium, go fishing or to the beach,? said Mrs. Davidson reminiscing,

?And he taught us that Bermuda was our bread and butter and that people came to see Bermuda because of its beauty. So I learned to look at Bermuda with that eye of it being beautiful, which it is.

?When I started flower arranging we were taught to look at everything with the principals and elements of design and to look at the trees and at the shapes of the leaves in comparison to other leaves ? the colours and how they change during the day. As an artist I see more of it now, so whenever I have a chance to drive down the South Shore, I drive down the South Shore!

?And I drive slowly because it is so ever-changing with the sun, the clouds and the water. I just love to try to capture that feeling of Bermuda and as I drive around I think, ?what a beautiful day for people to come to Bermuda?.?

When she first began painting plein air she was ?absolutely terrified? to be painting next to established artists such as Jonah Jones, Rhona Emmerson and Chris Marson.

?But then I realised that I could actually get myself into a zone,? she said, ?And it wasn?t that bad a painting when it came to the critique, although it did have some flaws.

?So, from each critique I learned, and watching the other artists and how they go about their compositions, the order and the technique of putting things on the canvas. I started paying attention and then coming home and changing the paintings that I had done and adding some other things.

?But I love the feeling of being right out there with the subject over a very short span of time ? it makes me work a lot faster and I like the pace, as I am a very quick painter anyhow. I like to get it on the canvas and I like the buttery feel of the oil on the canvas and get my idea right there.

Being a flower arranger has impacted on her use of time.

?By doing flower shows here and abroad I am used to working within a very short time frame,? she said.

?That taught me how to block other people out, because sometimes you have them in your space and were standing right next to the person you were competing against.

?It just taught me how to focus and concentrate on the principals and elements of design and to use my plant material as my palette.?

Flower arranging was a very big part of her life, but on changing from flower arranging to art, she said: ?It is all art, but it is just changing mediums.

?Before I retired from work I had always said that when I retire I am going to paint. So, when I did I went out and got myself some paints and basically that is how I started.

?I also joined Dan Dempster?s Life Drawing class and he was the one that encouraged me to do more and at the time Lisa Rego had a class in Dockyard for Masterworks in acrylics and from her course I produced two fairly decent pictures and Dan got me to exhibit them at the Bermuda Society of Arts (BSoA).?

With the additional confidence of showing her work, she decided to take her talents to another level and decided to enrol in a painting class at the Bermuda College.

At first she said she was a little nervous because she did not know what to expect, but once she got into it she couldn?t get enough of it.

?I got married at a very early age and therefore I never got to go to college and I hadn?t did anything on my own other than the 20 years of flower arranging,? she said, ?And it brought me out and I made wonderful friends all over the world and they are still my friends.

?But I was very nervous because I had not been in a school situation for so many years, but once I got used to it I loved it and I couldn?t wait for the day to come for me to pack up all my stuff and go.?

During her second year at the College she decided to repeat her initial course and one of her greatest influences was another artist who was the substitute teacher.

?Vernon Clarke was the substitute teacher because Louise Flannery was having a baby and I probably learned more from Vernon than anybody else ? especially about colour mixing, which you don?t have in flower arranging.

?You can?t make greys in flower arranging or flesh tones, you either have it in the flower or you don?t. He was the one who got me to free up my style and to just let it happen because I was very meticulous and I had to have every ?i? dotted and ?t? crossed in the painting and he really encouraged me to just get the paint on the canvas and let things happen. He?d say, ?loosen up Judi, loosen up!??

Another influence was the late Susan Curtis from the Windjammer Gallery who she said was a ?dear, dear friend?.

?She encouraged me a lot,? Mrs. Davidson said, ?And we did her last painting together before she died.

?She brought out my sensitivity to colour and what I hope will even further go to a softening of my painting, because at the moment I feel it is quite harsh.?

Every canvas to her is a little adventure and she never knows what is going to happen with it when she begins.

?Although I have an idea, I don?t know what it is going to look like and I think every artist is like that.?

Her love of art was further encouraged by her travels during her flower arranging days.

?Flower arranging took me to art museums all over the world.

?I did a huge demonstration with 400 people at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and so I was in and out of them.

When she started at the College her initial tutor wondered whether she had what it took to do the intermediate colour and composition class, as she did not have the necessary credits.

So she informed her teacher that although she had never attended the College or any other institution, she had taught flower arranging and colour and had demonstrated all over the world using colour.

?I think I have a fair idea about what colour is about!? she said.

?As it turned out, every time I was in there I was producing another full picture. The other girls were standing around and the teacher told me afterwards that I was a huge influence on them because I could work fast, concentrated and just got the job done, whereas they would be painting a picture for three or four weeks and still not have it by deadline, which I found very disturbing.?

But in saying that she agrees that every day is different and people work in ways.

?Some days I just click right into painting,? she said.

?It just comes right out of the paintbrush and I never know how it does, but I have always loved art and I have always loved colour.?