The Art of the Garden

Go outside with no plan other than spending a few hours outside, noticing, drawing, listening, thinking, jotting, adding colour or colour notes.

Be comfortable -I cannot stress how important this is. Once you are absorbed in the drawing you will hold the same position for sometime -so it needs to be a good and sustainable one. This may involve your best chair, a plump cushion and sunshade.

Choose a good time of day -on a hot bright day it is better to be out early and late. The light is too harsh in the middle of the day.

Observe and record what ever catches your attention -plants, flowers, insects, birds, shadows, textures, organic and manmade. Allow the drawings to meander and merge (overlap) like ripples spreading out in a puddle. Use a double page (or several) in your sketchbook to allow for maximum space to spread out.

Keep adding to your page (perhaps even returning over several days) until it feels ‘rich with observation’

You can add more layers of detail and colour to your drawings but be careful not to overwork them and therefore lose their freshness and excitement. It is a challenge to get the right balance between suggestion and description.

Use whichever media is most convenient and suitable for the kind of sketching you are wanting to do. For most this will be some kind of watercolour, colour pencils, pens and pencil. But don’t feel restricted by this list there is no right or wrong.

There are as many different ways to sketch, as there are artists who sketch. There are no rules to sketching other than it serves the purposes it is done for. Do not get hung up on producing an exquisite page, rather an interesting one. Use words as freely as drawings.