"Flowers from my Garden"

Watercolours on Paper by Liz Abbott at Koru Gallery Dunedin 1st to the 28th of September 2026

My mother loves flowers! Last year she and I transformed our wild hillside garden into a meadow of flowers which became the starting point for these paintings. My garden brings me so much happiness and I wanted to share that joy with you through these watercolours.

The paintings also became the inspiration for this year’s Gaza Fundraiser Calendar - read more here

Each painting began with a slow walk in the garden, choosing flowers to study closer. I then brought them into the studio and worked to capture the life of each flower in paint. Three of the paintings were made “en plein air” and two of them were guided by reference photos I took.

All the paintings are available online here or at Koru Gallery Dunedin.

Gaza Fundraiser : 2027 Moon Calendar "Flowers From my Garden" by Liz Abbott

NZ$30.00

About the calendar:

A4 landscape size (297 × 210mm) printed on thick satin paper in full glorious colour - see the photos below.

Each month includes NZ holidays and phases of the moon.

Shipping:

Free shipping within NZ kindly donated by Aramex.

Please email us at rudieandliz@gmail.com to arrange international shipping.

Please allow 5 to 10 working days for your order.

About the fundraiser:

This year’s Gaza fundraiser calendar is called “Flowers from my Garden”. It features 35 watercolour paintings inspired by the wild hillside meadow my mother and I created together. (You can read more about the inspiration for this year’s calendar here)

All proceeds (other than printing costs) are donated directly to the Aotearoa 4 Gaza Mutual Aid Fund which sends every cent to 60+ verified families in Gaza and ensures urgent support consistently reaches those who need it most. 

Payment:

If you prefer to internet bank click here. or email us at rudieandliz@gmail.com Otherwise you can proceed to checkout and use Stripe who will take a small percentage from the proceeds we send to the Aotearoa 4 Gaza Mutual Aid Fund.

Thank you to Print Art for donating the digitisation of the 35 paintings and to Aramex NZ for their generous support. And thank you for caring!

Add to cart

The inspiration for this year's Gaza Fundraiser Calendar: Flowers from my Garden

“The only difference between my children and their children is where they were born” Emily Writes, NZ author, journalist, poet and founder of the Aotearoa 4 Gaza Mutual Aid Fund.

My mother loves flowers! Last year she and I transformed our wild hillside garden into a meadow of flowers which became the inspiration for this calendar. My garden brings me so much happiness and I wanted to share that joy with you through these watercolour paintings. Recently I sent a photo of one of my yellow roses to my dear friend Yasmeen who lives with her family in Gaza. I asked her if she had ever had a garden….here is her reply:

“My dear friend, your words touched my heart more than I can express. Thank you for seeing my pain and for reminding me that kindness still exists in this world. The yellow rose you shared with me means more than you know. It reminded me of the little balcony garden I once had, where I lovingly grew my own roses before the war took everything from us. I truly hope that one day I will be able to plant flowers again in a place filled with peace.Thank you for carrying me in your heart. Sending you my love and gratitude.” Yasmeen from Gaza

You can read more of Yasmeen’s writing here

By purchasing this calendar you are supporting families like Yasmeen’s. All proceeds from each calendar (other than printing costs) are donated directly to the Aotearoa 4 Gaza Mutual Aid Fund which sends every cent to 60+ verified families in Gaza, ensuring urgent support consistently reaches those who need it most. Thank you to Print Art for donating the digitisation of the paintings and to Aramex for providing free shipping within NZ.

All the original “Flowers from my Garden” paintings are now available at our online exhibition here.

Thank you for caring!

Gaza Fundraiser : 2027 Moon Calendar "Flowers From my Garden" by Liz Abbott

NZ$30.00

About the calendar:

A4 landscape size (297 × 210mm) printed on thick satin paper in full glorious colour - see the photos below.

Each month includes NZ holidays and phases of the moon.

Shipping:

Free shipping within NZ kindly donated by Aramex.

Please email us at rudieandliz@gmail.com to arrange international shipping.

Please allow 5 to 10 working days for your order.

About the fundraiser:

This year’s Gaza fundraiser calendar is called “Flowers from my Garden”. It features 35 watercolour paintings inspired by the wild hillside meadow my mother and I created together. (You can read more about the inspiration for this year’s calendar here)

All proceeds (other than printing costs) are donated directly to the Aotearoa 4 Gaza Mutual Aid Fund which sends every cent to 60+ verified families in Gaza and ensures urgent support consistently reaches those who need it most. 

Payment:

If you prefer to internet bank click here. or email us at rudieandliz@gmail.com Otherwise you can proceed to checkout and use Stripe who will take a small percentage from the proceeds we send to the Aotearoa 4 Gaza Mutual Aid Fund.

Thank you to Print Art for donating the digitisation of the 35 paintings and to Aramex NZ for their generous support. And thank you for caring!

Add to cart

Drawing from Poems

About 6 weeks ago I spent a couple of days immersing myself in creative prompts from “Drawing from Poems” by Chloe Briggs from Drawing is Free. I find that Chloe’s exercises provide a gentle motivation to play and explore in ways I wouldn’t think of by myself. I am also comforted by the thought of all the other subscribers around the world working with similar ideas. Whether you are starting out or have been making pictures for decades I highly recommend signing up for Chloe’s very affordable monthly drawing booklets on Patreon.

Chloe suggested working through this project over 24 hours so as not to overthink it!  Here are some photos and notes on the process I followed.

Choose a poem. Mine was “As are you” by local poet, painter and dear friend Kirstie McKinnon from her book “Songs from the Water” 2020

Transcribe the poem by hand. I divided the poem into three sections and used coloured watercolour pencils on some damp offcuts of thick watercolour paper I had saved - i knew I would eventually find a use for those scraps!

Identify some of the key images in the poem. I selected “storm”, “split trees”, “rose” and “stars”.

Search the keywords in the public domain for images that resonate. These are the images I found which include “Gathering Storm” by Albert Bierstadt and “Small Roses in the Yard” by Nguyen Dai Thang.

Draw or paint freely from these images and pin them up in the sequence of the poem. At this point I became interested in arranging the four images and three sections of the poem from right to left as well as left to right.

I decided to make a concertina book on both sides of some strips of the thick damp watercolour paper with the images flowing into each other from both directions. The storm became a stage for the split tree which became a rose branch reaching into a day “spun with stars”. I experimented with grinding rock salt into the wet blue of the sky. Embedding watercolour and gouache on both sides of the damp paper right to the ripped edges reminded me of felted textiles.

I remembered I still had some scraps of cotton rag paper I had made from beating old hospital sheets into handmade paper about 40 years ago! I washed watercolour on these, tore the edges and hand-wrote the three sections of the poem onto the fragments. Then I pasted these on to the images of the concertina book, working in reverse as well.

I worked on three little concertina booklets and gifted two of them to Kirstie. Here they are, front and back, all variations on each other.

Fundraising Page!

We‘ve been busy fundraising this year including contributing portraits, peace platters and postcards for peace to other fundraisers from Ōtepoti to Skibereen in Ireland!

We now have a dedicated fundraising page on our website so take a look! You can email us anytime for more details as well as the option of internet banking.

MSF Fundraiser: "Forests and Birds" 5 Pack of Blank Greeting Cards"

NZ$30.00

This pack of cards showcases paintings by Liz Abbott of forests and birds from Rakiura and the West Coast (see full images below).

Each card is in full glossy colour and measures 15 × 10 cm and 20 × 10cm. The cards are blank and come with matching envelopes.

Shipping:

Free shipping within NZ kindly donated by Aramex.

International shipping to be arranged with the purchaser.

Free pick up can be arranged in Dunedin, contact us for more details.

Who is the fundraiser for?

All proceeds (other than the cost of the printing) go to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Doctors Without Borders who are an independent organisation delivering essential medical aid to those affected by conflict, epidemics and natural disasters.

If you would prefer to internet bank then please contact us directly otherwise you can proceed to checkout and use Stripe who will take a small percentage from the proceeds we send to MSF.

Thank you for your support!

*To pay by internet banking please email us at rudieandliz@gmail.com

Add to cart

NZSLT Fundraiser: "Pakake/Sea Lions" 6 Pack of Blank Greeting Cards

NZ$36.00

This pack of cards showcases a series of pastels by Liz Abbott of pakake/New Zealand sea lions on the Otago Peninsula (see full images below).

Each card is in full glossy colour and measures 15 × 10 cm. The cards are blank and come with matching envelopes.

Shipping:

Free shipping within NZ kindly donated by Aramex.

International shipping to be arranged with the purchaser.

Free pick up can be arranged in Dunedin, contact us for more details..

Who is the fundraiser for?

All proceeds (other than printing costs and the small percentage Stripe retains from your payment*) go to the New Zealand Sea Lion Trust (NZSLT). Founded in 2003, the NZSLT was established to protect, support, undertake research and provide education about this endangered marine mammal species. Pakake/ New Zealand sea lions are one of the rarest and most threatened sea lion species in the world. Mainland pakake are only found on the South East coast of Aotearoa, breeding as far north as Ōtepoti Dunedin.

If you would prefer to internet bank then please contact us directly otherwise you can proceed to checkout and use Stripe who will take a small percentage from the proceeds we send to the NZSLT.

Thank you for your support!

*To pay by internet banking please email us at rudieandliz@gmail.com

Add to cart

Portraits for Peace!

Thanks to Emma and the team at the Duck Cafe for letting me loose on their walls with over 100 portraits and for matching each donation dollar for dollar! Together we raised $900.45 for Medecins Sans Frontiers.

Thank you Chloe Briggs for hosting the Monday Live Portrait Sessions at https://drawingisfree.org/

2025 West Coast Field Trip

Our first stop was Tauparikākā/ Ship Creek just north of Haast visiting old tree friends in the kahikatea swamp forest. We were very excited to discover beautiful blue werewere-kōkako mushrooms for the first time!

We started the second day by wandering along the Hapuku Estuary Board Walk which loops through an intertidal wetland and a giant podacarp forest. Then we discovered the Lake Ellery beech forest track as well as a stony beach near Hannah’s Clearing full of giant rimu. We visited Okahu/Jackson Bay but by then my phone battery was flat so no photos!

Over the next couple of days we returned to Lake Ellery and Hannah’s Clearing and played around with drawing, painting and sculpting - the weather was amazing and the sandflies persistent!!

Back home in the studio I used gouache and my reference photos and videos to make these loose rimu studies.

U3A Studio Visit

By Chris Hewitt July 10th 2025

It was a cold, overcast, windy, drizzly wintery day when our depleted group of nine members arrived at the home of our hosts.  The enthusiastic, friendly welcome we received into their cosy home and work spaces more than made up for this inhospitable weather. We were extremely impressed by the hard work and thoughtfulness that our hosts had put into the preparation for our the visit.  They had bought their home in a somewhat neglected state about five years ago and together had done extensive renovations and rebuilds.  We were welcomed into their lounge, the walls well filled with a great variety of Liz’s work and we were comfortably seated and heated aside a glowing log burner. 

Rudie took the hot drink orders and we enjoyed biscuits whilst Liz gave us deep insights into the trials and tribulations of a most dedicated, conscientious artist.  She quoted her father as saying  words to the effect that life is one problem after another.  And so it had transpired for her.  Liz had had an in interest in art from early childhood and had many relatives with art interests.  When she was twenty years old she moved from Christchurch to Dunedin to attend Art School where she thrived and settled.  Liz enjoys using many different media, fabrics, acrylics, oils,  pastels and water colours.

Liz told us that she had found that her art had been most critical to her health and happiness and that she felt a compulsion to continue to be creative.  The abundance of work that she showed us was ample evidence of that.  In the late nineties she won an art competition which got one of her paintings onto the front cover of the regional Telecom telephone directory and repeated the success several years later.  Around this time she made some hand painted wood cuts prints of Peninsula wild life and plants, now adorning this writer’s hallway.

Liz met her partner, kindred spirit and soulmate, Rudie Verhoef and they were married in 2005.  Born in the Netherlands he came to NZ in early childhood.  He has a strong family background of wood workers, carpenters and builders and has specialised in the restoration of heritage buildings both here and overseas.  His manual and creative skills were responsible for turning an old boat shed into Fleur’s place at Moeraki.  We learnt that Rudie too had suffered some harrowing experiences in early life and serious health issues more recently and both his and Liz’s resilience to misfortune and their work ethic impressed us greatly, as well as their mutual devotion and happiness.

In addition to their to their house renovation and rebuild Liz and Rudie constructed her studio using a kit set from Estonia fully insulated with ample double glazed windows, all in the space of 3 days!  Rudie now is concentrating on less physically demanding work, enjoying making bowls, platters, garden statues and furniture using untreated native timber.

As a continuing art education project Liz participates in a free Zoom based class weekly during which she has an option to sketch another class member.  Her portrait sketches are on display on the walls at The Duck Cafe in Macandrew Bay in an  exhibition there, a fund raising campaign.  You can buy a portrait for $7!  The Exhibition closes on July 23rd so hurry on over.

After our thanks and goodbyes the group repaired to the Portobello Hotel and again enjoyed the warmth of the log burner  some nice food and drinks together. All agreed that it had been one of our best visits ever.