...and to finish off that page

The weather is glorious again today, so I popped down to my garden to finish off the page that I started at work on Friday. Euphorbia and sempervivum.

A quick sketch after work

The weather was glorious today; warm and sunny but with a bit of a breeze so it wasn't too hot (although it's still much warmer than I would expect for April). As such I knocked off work early so that I could sit around in my client's garden for half an hour and try and sketch some more flowers. Tulip 'Raspberry Ripple' (good name, eh?), bluebells, and a random cornus leaf.

Oh garden of mine...

I haven't sat down in my own garden for MONTHS. Literally. That's the trouble with being a gardener, you spend all your time in gardens for other people, and when you get home you're too tired to spend time in your own.

This evening I was no less tired than usual, but the weather was beautiful and I suddenly felt the desperate need to just go and sit outside. So I did.

I ended up with a pretty random composition consisting of apple blossom, a hosta, and a tulip (because I thought the page needed some colour). They've come out pretty well I think. The blossom and hosta were sketched with pencil, then ink, then the colour added. The tulip was a brave (!) attempt at painting straight away, then inking in some definition afterwards. I say 'brave'... but really I was just too lazy to walk to the other end of the garden to fetch my pencil...

Cakes and cookies

The friend I went to stay with over the weekend had baked a delicious selection of cakes and cookies. Unfortunately I'm lactose intolerant, and they all had chocolate in - so I could have them, but only in limited doses! She packed a box full of goodies for me to take away, and when I popped some on a plate today they looked so good I thought they ought to be immortalised... so here they are!

A week in sketches

A lovely bank holiday (part 3)

My handbag weighs a tonne (in fact, technically, it weighs just under a stone!). It's full of all sorts of things that I might need on a day-to-day basis. I went through my bag the other week and it contained all sorts, from tissues to painkillers to scissors to spare decking screws to perfume to a keyring torch shaped like a cow (which moos when it lights up).

Like I said, it contains pretty much everything I *might* need. So I wondered what I could get away with as a bare minimum. This sketch shows the extremely whittled down list. It's pretty comprehensive I think, as long as i don't get a headache, or have an asthma attack, or want to floss my teeth, or need to see in the dark... ;)

A lovely bank holiday (Part 2)

A wee sketch of the paintbox and brush I'm using.