For Christmas I received some new drawing paraphernalia. A monogrammed sketchbook given by John Hoffman and a pocket-sized set of handmade watercolours, from Julia.
The Christmas/New Year break was very relaxing and I barely got out of my pyjamas the entire time, but on one of our few ‘proactive days’ (when we actually left home) I got to use these gifts when we went sketching in Golden Gate Park, which is one of my favourite places to draw.
Starting in The Rose Garden, I found a bench with a view across the flower beds, but as it wasn’t the season for blossoms I focused my attention on the trees beyond. Drawing scenes like this is difficult for me. Trees and shrubbery are hard to define in line alone, and need a mastery of light, colour and tone, none of which are my strong suits. But for that reason I need to try such scenes every so often. After a few doodles we head over to the nearby Japanese Tea Garden.
While nibbling cookies & mochi and sipping tea in the Tea House, we sketched the lovely view of the front gate into the Tea Garden. This welcome change of scenery gave me more of the interesting compositions and contrasts that I like to draw. The Tea Garden was rather crowded so I barely cracked open the watercolours on site, because I didn’t want to hog my seat for too long. So we went home to finish the drawings from photos.
These new Greenleaf & Blueberry watercolours are very compact. 14 colours fit into a business card-sized case, with a different earthier palette than the mini-sets I’m used to (usually Winsor & Newton). I look forward to playing around with them further in my monogrammed sketchbook by Shinola.
