Natalie Purcell

Natalie Purcell is a watercolor painter in Burlington, Vermont, and before that she was a pastry chef, trained with an AOS in Baking and Pastry from the New England Culinary Institute. Years at the bench taught her restraint and timing: knowing when sugar is ready, when to stop folding, when a glaze has done enough. She brings the same instinct to the page, where she holds firmly to one rule, no white paint, let the paper make the light, and cheerfully admits to a tube of white gouache kept in a drawer for the emergencies that turn up about twice a week.

Natalie paints flowers, peonies above all, in loose, luminous watercolor finished with a soft spatter that gives each piece a relaxed, boho ease. Her blooms glow because the light comes off the sheet itself, with petals left open and edges allowed to bleed and breathe. The canvases bring gentle color and warmth to bedrooms, breakfast nooks, entryways, and sunny living rooms, and they sit just as comfortably above a dresser as in a kitchen that still smells a little like baking. Below are Purcell’s canvases in our shop, ready to hang.