Beauty-full

It has been a beautiful summer's day here. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to slip off my shoes and sit on the grass and draw the trees. They each have their essence those trees. Some have leaves that are ordered. Some are cluttered. Others have their branches open wide, or dipping rhythmically to the floor. I looked for shape and pattern. I looked. I listened. I drew.

Sketchbook Peeks

Sue Bulmer is featuring me on her blog as part of her continuing series, 'Sketchbook Peeks'.  It's been one of my plans for this year to get back in to keeping sketchbooks and visual notebooks.  Recent purchases of Hockney's 'Sketchbook of Yorkshire' and Orla Kiely's 'Pattern' have inspired me. The process of editing and simplification that an image goes through as it moves from what I see, through my hands to what I draw gives me space to compose the image ready to work on it in the studio.

Making a simple zig zag book of houses I have lived in for the Memory Book workshop reminded me how much I love the book as a private space.  It must hark back to keeping diaries as a teenager. I enjoy the sketchbook holding a collection of thoughts or ideas or images...a time capsule.  I find it utterly satisfying to close it up and tie it with string. Like any book it contains a miniature world and I love the tangible ritual of opening the sketchbook and revisiting another time and place.  You just don't get that sensory experience when you load up your blog!!