While looking for something else I discovered Sam Cannon’s artwork and fell in love with his imagery and calligraphy. His eloquently realized animals, with beautifully hand-lettered quotations, spoke to a desire in me to do likewise. His tiny Petal Paper originals were particularly appealing.
When I looked into channeling his style I found I was fresh out of Petal Paper, so I just made my own version by wetting watercolor paper and painting loose leaves and flowers.
Using these backgrounds as inspiration, I added figures and quotes that particularly resonated with me, keeping faithfully to Sam Cannon’s style.
As the paintings developed I added more leaves, flowers and stems around the figures and calligraphy, making the most of my watercolors.
I love the distinctive Sam Cannon ‘font’ and line arrangement. I experimented with different tools for the calligraphy. 
I tried a more traditional opaque gouache approach with the dip pen on brown paper for this garden painting.
My favorite Thoreau quote is painted with white ink and a brush on the woodpile. These chilly chickadees are drawn from the flocks right outside my window here in Vermont.
I am using Schminke Aqua Bronze Rich Gold and Silver gouache to paint the metallic accents.
I learn by copying and experimenting and evolving. I hope to keep moving ever further from copying Sam and more into being entirely me.
As always, you can find my work for sale at my Etsy shop.
Ashley Wolff 