Reston artist and gardener Christine Lashley’s Artist in the Garden exhibition, opening today at ArtSpace Herndon, is anything but garden variety.

“It really is about my love affair with plants,” says Lashley.  “It’s about me and gardening, and what I ate for dinner, the plants that are growing in my yard, what strikes me when I travel and what would strike my eye as a gardener.”

Featuring oil and watercolor paintings that represent France and Italy, as well as Lashley’s Certified Natural Habitat backyard in Reston, the exhibit presents a merging of Lashley’s passion for painting and planting.

“I have kind of evolved as a gardener,” says Lashley.  “At first I tried growing a few things and it didn’t go well, so I learned, as every gardener does, through trial and error.”

As she learned, Lashley filled in the gaps with her artists’ imagination.

“I might have foxgloves and maybe two are blooming, but I imagine, what if I had five or six?” says Lashley. “It’s the fantasy of a garden as seen through gardeners’ eyes.”

Lashley says she chooses whether to work in oils or watercolor depending on her mood and time constraints. Each delivers something different to the feel of a painting.

 “The oils lend themselves more to big, fat, juicy strokes, where the flowers kind of jump off and come towards you,” says Lashley. “With watercolors, there is a certain luminosity, with the translucent layers, that is great for sky and water.”

Many of Lashley’s paintings were created  "en plein air,” done outdoors or on location, a practice she feels gives her work a vibrancy and emotional impact.

 “[En plein air] is the idea that you are, as an artist, absorbing the whole scene that you see in front of you and you try to encapsulate and transfer that to the paper,” says Lashley.

“Memory has to play a role,” Lashley adds. “How did it smell? How did it feel to the touch, the memory of what that flower was like? I try to capture some of that.”

Lashley will give a watercolor painting demonstration Saturday from 2 to 3 p.m., followed by an opening reception and gallery talk from 3 to 5 p.m.  The Artist in the Garden exhibition will be on display until May 1.