Deep Dive: Something Good Waits by Cindy Revell
Posted by Jasen Robillard on
Artist: Cindy RevellPuzzle Design: Siri Olson
Dimensions: 27.5 cm x 27.5 cm
Piece Count: 240
Difficulty: 3 out of 5
Step into a world where gardens hold secrets and magic lives just beneath the surface. Based on Cindy Revell's enchanting painting, this puzzle invites you to discover a peaceful country scene that's brimming with hidden life.
The artwork depicts a quaint hillside house surrounded by rolling forest, where peaceful blue skies swirl with wispy clouds above fields of patterned greens. In the foreground, vibrant pink coneflowers dance in an unseen breeze, hinting at the gentle forces that tend this magical garden.
But the real enchantment lies in what you'll uncover piece by piece. Our puzzle features 25+ specially designed whimsy pieces that tell the story of this tended garden: vegetables like carrots and beets, delicate flowers including daffodils and forget-me-nots, essential gardening tools, and garden creatures from leaping toads to beneficial green lacewings. Most magical of all are the three hidden fairies—each inspired by flower whimsy—waiting to be discovered as you build this pastoral paradise.
About the Artist
Cindy Revell is a Canadian artist known for her vividly coloured oil paintings featuring spirited animals, birds, and vibrant flowers. Growing up on a farm in Carrot River, Saskatchewan, Revell spent her childhood reading, drawing, and developing her artistic talents. She studied Environmental Graphic Design at Grant MacEwan University and worked as a graphic designer and award-winning freelance illustrator before transitioning to oil painting. Revell's work is inspired by nature, folk art, and artists like Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Henri Rousseau. Her paintings explore themes of individuality, connection, and the possibilities of "what if". Revell is a member of The Oil Painters of America and a signature member of The Federation of Canadian Artists (SFCA).
Links
Cindy Revell - Instagram Profile
Siri's Puzzle Design Notes
When I first encountered Cindy Revell's painting "Something Good Waits," I was immediately drawn to the way she captured something alive in the very air itself. The broad, sweeping brushstrokes in the sky seem to breathe across the canvas, and if you look closely, you might even catch the suggestion of a face in those swirling clouds—flowing hair curling through the blue, pulling the air across the scene.
What captured my imagination was the sense that this garden is tended, even though no gardener is visible in the frame. This is exactly the kind of painting that makes me excited about puzzle design. There's so much happening beneath the surface, both literally and figuratively.
I’ve always been interested in what’s happening below the surface of an image. As in the Lac La Hache puzzle design, I wanted to suggest that this world extends beyond what we can see. I've hidden tiny garden tools and creatures just beneath the soil line—little hints of the buried life that makes gardens thrive. The garter snake that winds through one section isn't just decorative; it's a symbol of good fortune and transformation. And with 2025 being the Year of the Snake, it felt like perfect timing. After a recent visit to the Victoria Bug Zoo, I was also inspired to include some of my favourite garden helpers: a praying mantis with their magnetic, hard gaze and delicate grasp, and a green lacewing—those beneficial insects that help control garden pests without causing any harm themselves.
The most magical elements in this puzzle are the three hidden fairies I've tucked throughout the design. They're inspired by my childhood habit of building fairy houses in the forest—tiny doors at tree bases, miniature twig furniture balanced on rocks. I knew the fairies would never let my human eyes catch them moving in, but I loved imagining they might.
Each fairy in this puzzle is inspired by a flower whimsy, and to help guide their proportions, I even took reference photos of Marcy in the back of our workshop. The result is a puzzle that captures that same childhood wonder: the magical possibility that gardens are tended by more than just human hands.
Beyond the fairies, this puzzle celebrates all the creatures that make gardens flourish. You'll find whimsy pieces shaped like essential vegetables—carrots, beets, onions, peppers, zucchini, and peas in their pod. There are flowers like daffodils, roses, and forget-me-nots, plus the gardening tools that help everything grow.
Birds keep watch from above, while a leaping toad and that beneficial green lacewing represent the wildlife partnerships that make healthy gardens possible. Even the gardening gnome gets a place of honor, standing guard over this magical space.
What I love most about this puzzle is how it rewards close attention. Just like Cindy's painting reveals new details the longer you look, our puzzle pieces tell stories as you fit them together. Each whimsy shape is a small revelation, a reminder that the most beautiful gardens are collaborations between seen and unseen forces.
Sometimes the best magic happens when we're not looking directly at it—when we create spaces where something good can wait to surprise us.
Hidden Whimwhams
- 3x Fairies
- 1x Flower pot
Whimsy List
- 7x vegetables
- 2x Carrots
- Beet
- Onion
- Pepper
- Zucchini
- Peas in a pod
- 3x Flowers
- Daffodil
- Rose
- Forget-me-nots
- 2x Gardening tools
- 2x Birds
- Snail
- Garter snake
- Leaping toad
- Green lacewing
- Gardening gnome
- Watering can
- Fiddleheads
