#2 IN MY GARDEN
Sketching my garden for a whole year!
Hi everyone,
Welcome to week two of In My Garden.
Last week, I mentioned that I’d be sharing my thoughts on simplifying my work. Here are the three main criteria I plan to follow and why I think this will help-
Keep a Continuous (ish) Line: Starting with a continuous line helps ease the overwhelm of where to begin. It’s all about following contours and shapes, which feels both fun and liberating. I find that the results are often more fluid and energetic, and I almost always love how they turn out.
Stick to Limited Art Materials: By limiting my materials, I save time and energy that would otherwise be spent deciding what to use. This helps me stay focused and reduces the temptation to procrastinate.
Time Limit of 10 minutes - Will help minimize perfectionism and help keep a continuity with my sketches across the year.
I’ve been applying these criteria more frequently in my work and have found the process quite enjoyable. They simplify what can be complicated scenes, making them easier to handle and more satisfying to create.
WEEK TWO
This week’s sketch features the humble chamomile. Among all the vibrant blooms catching my eye in the garden this week, this modest plant, which has the most divine scent, keeps drawing me in. I bought four small 9 cm pots of chamomile two years ago, divided each one to create two plants, which instantly doubled what I had (I’m a big fan of propagating and splitting plants to save money). I planted them around the raised pond area, letting them spread. The idea is that you can step on them and enjoy their amazing fragrance. They also creep so they have softened the hard edges of the concrete pond beautifully and their lush green foliage which is also evergreen is perfect there all year round.
This particular species ‘Chamomile Treneague’ is supposed to be a non-flowering clone of lawn chamomile—but we’ve ended up with three small daisy-like flowers fluttering in the breeze. I’m not complaining - Their simplicity is just lovely.
I sketched the daisies and then some of the foliage very loosely, not getting drawn in to all the detail. I lightly water coloured it all and then added some coloured pencils to accentuate it all a little more.
Next week, I plan to show you the art materials I’ve chosen for this project and why, I hope to see you all then ;-)
Loving this new project of yours, Nikki! Looking forward to seeing your garden updates throughout the next year x