Keeping a sketchbook: Drawing the Garden

Keeping a sketchbook is the best habit an artist can have. The more you draw from reality the easier it will be to develop your own style and compositions. Using the Garden and Glasshouse Range as your starting points, Karin will give creative prompts to introduce new materials and techniques throughout the course: looking carefully at plants, drawing from observation and gradually introducing elements of imagination, memory and found materials. The day will start with a short introductory talk introducing examples of botanical drawings from art history and by contemporary artists. Through these examples, we will gain inspiration and be given a focus and theme for the session before heading out in the Garden. It is up to you how you interpret and develop your ideas. You can expect a joyful, creative and explorative approach set in a friendly and informative atmosphere. Mostly we will be working in our sketchbooks; a suggested material list will be supplied a few weeks before the start of the course.

Suitable for all abilities.

Karin studied Art History at Uppsala University and Complutense University in Madrid before completing an MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art in 2012. Since then, she has published five children’s books and teaches on various art courses and is an Associate Lecturer in Illustration at Anglia Ruskin University.