Joy Newton Designs: Jewelry, Home Decor and Decorative Accessories in the News.

By Valerie Finholm

A small bunch of wilted carrots lies next to a drawing pad on a table in Joy newton's Connecticut art studio.

A bunch of carrots, above, is a model for one of Joy Newton's designs

The carrots look as if they have been waiting for the botanical artist, owner of Joy Newton Designs , to paint their portrait-and bring them back to life. Newton plans to do just that, but she will finish several orchids for a collection she will display at the Connecticut Flower & Garden Show in Hartford later this month.

"I have many beautiful specimens," says Newton a soft-spoken perfectionist who works in a converted 18th -century barn. Using highly pigmented watercolors, Newton's paintings capture the beauty of the plants and gardens outside the windows of her antique farmhouse she shares with her family.

Her illustrations of flowers, birds, fruits and vegetables are transferred onto decorative items such as Italian-made white terra-cotta plates, platters, vases and "vessels"- which look like flowerpots but are made to hold things such as desk supplies and kitchen gadgets. Her ever-expanding collections also include greeting cards, prints, glass paperweights and a line of jewelry. "They're for people who love and appreciate plants," says Newton. "Every room deserves a garden view," says Newton. I'm bringing the outdoors in."

Michelle Murphy of West Hartford says she buys Newton's vessels to give as wedding gifts. Her favorite is a large vessel with a blue hydrangea in full bloom. "She is truly an artist. But she is also a botanist," she says. "The images are so precise and real and loving reproductions of nature." Elizabeth Donovan whose parents own the Hickory Stick Book Shop in Washington Depot Connecticut, says the store has carried Newton's paperweights, note cards, botanical illustrations and ornaments for a number of years, and they sell very well. "The nature themes are really well done," Dononvan says, adding that she is particularly drawn to Newton's bird designs.

Newton's work is carried by many museums and other upscale shops. The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art shop sells Newton's designs including the Siberian Iris Vessel, a white vessel decorated with a slender-stemmed purplish-blue iris. Her work is also available through the web site www.JoyNewtonDesigns.com.

On a raw winter day, Newton dressed casually in jeans with a scarf artfully draped around her neck-stands outside her studio in the perennial garden where she finds many of the plants to illustrate for her collections. The gardens, which winter had turned into a tangled mass of brown stalks, was designed by her husband, Glenn, a landscape designer.

Newton who grew up in Newton Mass., and moved to Connecticut in high school, says drawing has always been a part of her life. Her father, a scientist and doctor, taught her to look at things in detail. She studied art and design at the Art Institute of Chicago and Parsons School of Design in New York City.

"I can't remember a day that art was not a part of my life, " she says.

She started her business seven years ago by herself and now has three employees who help her design packages and fill orders. Inside Newton's studio warmed by a pellet stove, Alex Siskos uses a laptop computer to design a new recycled plastic container for Newton's gift cards. Nearby a long table is stacked with paperweights and magnets. Shelves along the sides of the room hold vessels of different sizes. A drawer is filled with jewelry.

Newton shows off one of her newest products- a canvas covered garden journal that can withstand the rigors of outdoor use. "We were looking for a cover that was durable, water-repellent and recycled," she says of the 110 page journal, which is made of dark vintage canvas used to wrap luggage in the 1950's. The journal, which has Newton's signature in the form of a decorative fern button sells for $59 on her web site.

By the end of summer, Newton plans to introduce her new Farm Stand collection, which will include the bounty of the typical New England farm stand- those carrots, tomatoes on the vine, corn, sunflowers, peas and perhaps peppers and squash.

A vegetable medley glass platter, below, is on display at her studio.

Newton's ideas for products seem endless, so endless that when asked the price of a tailored burlap tablecloth with kick pleats, she laughs and says, "That's just the table covering we use during shows."

So far her business has revolved around nature, as she sees it, as she paints it.

" I had a lady burst into tears at a show last year. She said, "These are happy tears," Newton recalls. " I get many people who are just so touched. They see a flower that reminds them of their childhood or someone who has passed."