BY LINDA BARNARD TORONTO STAR

If you needed further proof that Canadians are gaga for gardening, a Toronto artist and home decor storeowner is about to start doing custom acrylic portraits of urban flowerbeds and porches for their proud owners.

"Gardening is a huge boom industry and people want memories of their gardens," explains Jane Hall, whose Pape Ave. store, The Voice of Color, shows timid decorators how to introduce vivid shades into their rooms.

Hall, who dubs herself "anti-beige," believes colour evokes an emotional response when you enter a room. The garden, she says, is no different.

Hall has been using gardens and porches as inspiration for her artwork since 1996 and her canvasses hang in private collections around the world. Recognizing that gardening is an everescalating passion for a growing number of people in Toronto, Hall decided to expand her focus to do commissioned portraits of outdoor spaces. Plan on spending $1,000 to $3,000 for a garden or porch painting, depending on size, or as little as $250 for a small canvas of a favourite single bloom in your garden.

Painting from a photograph, Hall captures the garden in full bloom and at the height of its beauty and colour. And with Canadians spending $3.36 billion annually on plants, garden tools and accessories, Hall says it's not much of a stretch to think they'll also want to plunk down upward of $1,000 for an original portrait of their beloved backyard.
" As Canadians, we look for a place to bring in colour after a long, grey winter and the garden is an extension of the home," says Hall, who adds she's happy to take a bit of artistic licence and pump up peonies or ratchet up the colour on the roses for maximum effect.

True to her signature style, Hall's garden portraits are studies in brilliant colour. Vibrant reds and oranges contrast with rich, deep blues and purples. The portraits tend to focus on one area of the garden, highlighting an architectural detail or plant grouping.

Her favourite studies incorporate the porch. "I love porches," she says with a sigh. "I love the wicker furniture and the flower pots that people put out."
Hall says she'd like to work on a triptych that shows three seasons of the same view in a garden. And a porch scene or backyard at dusk, bathed in lantern or torchlight, would also be an interesting contrast to the same scene painted by day, she says.

For those who desire a more unusual garden portrait, Hall also makes whimsical chairs where painted canvas is used as the chair seat and back. She recently did four floral chairs for entertainer Luba Goy: two poppies, a tiger lily and a tulip.

Chair prices range from $500 for wooden barstools with backs, to $1,100 and up for more elaborate canvas seats.

For information, call 416-462-2949.