Plein-Air Watercoloring at the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden
Celebrate spring in the garden of our historic landmark by making your own watercolors with instruction and tips from a professional artist.
If you’ve wanted to try watercolor but didn’t know where to start, this workshop is for you! Please join us in the garden of the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden at the height of its spring flowering. You will learn different ways of using your brush to create leaves, petals, stems, and bushes. You will also learn to make gradations from light to dark, one color to another, and how to control the water.
You don’t have to know how to draw—color comes first!
No experience necessary.
Materials supplied. If you have your own materials, feel free to bring them.
Please have a tea towel to protect your clothes from paint spatters.
See how watercolor painting outdoors in plein air lends itself to capturing the changing light and colors of the garden and receive an introduction to this NYC historic landmark. The program includes a 30-minute garden tour followed by a painting session in the garden under the guidance of a professional artist.
This tour is timed for visitors to experience bold colors and fragrances, including crab apple trees, a cherry tree, viburnum, lilacs, and over 500 bulbs; our garden was the recipient of a 2025 Garden Club of America Zone Historic Preservation Commendation for Zone III.
About Your Instructor:
Peggy Roalf is an artist and writer living in Manhattan. Her work has recently been seen in several NYC exhibitions including I Dreamed A Garden, Seeing Music and Scribbles. In 2022 one of her paintings, transformed into a 5 by 8-foot flag, flew at Rockefeller Center’s month-long One Earth program. She has taught at the undergraduate and postgraduate level at Fordham University, The Cooper Union, Parsons School of Design, and the International Center of Photography, among others. Since 2019, she has taught The Interaction of Watercolor for The New York Public Library, Sculptors Alliance, Inc., and Lenox Hill Neighborhood House.
Art supplies generously funded in part by “BLICK Art Materials” at www.DickBlick.com.
1826-2026: Celebrating 200 Years of the Mount Vernon Hotel
Celebrate spring in the garden of our historic landmark by making your own watercolors with instruction and tips from a professional artist.
If you’ve wanted to try watercolor but didn’t know where to start, this workshop is for you! Please join us in the garden of the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden at the height of its spring flowering. You will learn different ways of using your brush to create leaves, petals, stems, and bushes. You will also learn to make gradations from light to dark, one color to another, and how to control the water.
You don’t have to know how to draw—color comes first!
No experience necessary.
Materials supplied. If you have your own materials, feel free to bring them.
Please have a tea towel to protect your clothes from paint spatters.
See how watercolor painting outdoors in plein air lends itself to capturing the changing light and colors of the garden and receive an introduction to this NYC historic landmark. The program includes a 30-minute garden tour followed by a painting session in the garden under the guidance of a professional artist.
This tour is timed for visitors to experience bold colors and fragrances, including crab apple trees, a cherry tree, viburnum, lilacs, and over 500 bulbs; our garden was the recipient of a 2025 Garden Club of America Zone Historic Preservation Commendation for Zone III.
About Your Instructor:
Peggy Roalf is an artist and writer living in Manhattan. Her work has recently been seen in several NYC exhibitions including I Dreamed A Garden, Seeing Music and Scribbles. In 2022 one of her paintings, transformed into a 5 by 8-foot flag, flew at Rockefeller Center’s month-long One Earth program. She has taught at the undergraduate and postgraduate level at Fordham University, The Cooper Union, Parsons School of Design, and the International Center of Photography, among others. Since 2019, she has taught The Interaction of Watercolor for The New York Public Library, Sculptors Alliance, Inc., and Lenox Hill Neighborhood House.
Art supplies generously funded in part by “BLICK Art Materials” at www.DickBlick.com.
1826-2026: Celebrating 200 Years of the Mount Vernon Hotel
Good to know
Highlights
- 1 hour 30 minutes
- In person
Refund Policy
Location
Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden
421 East 61st Street
New York, NY 10065
How do you want to get there?
