The Garden Trip that Inspired Sketchbook Pages
and lots of photos!
Hello Hello!
I’m back for another Earth Inspired post because I thought it would be fun to recap some pages in my sketchbook from the 100 Day Project that I haven't really shared!
Last month I got to visit a lovely local State Park, that my mom and I always enjoy but it is always a bit more magical in the ✨Spring✨! The park is known for their beautiful gardens year around but it was Azaleas season.
So we got to walk around and enjoy the flowers and new growth. Tho, I do have to note that this past winter was rougher than normal for this part of Florida, and a lot of plants were indeed impacted so some plants were still in recovery mode.
The pink is just so vibrant and lovely isn’t it!
Now while the flowers are all lovely, I have the give the trees some love! The Live Oaks coated in Spanish Moss, and the Palms growing through the Live Oak branches, it’s just beautiful!
There are also lil ponds throughout the park with fountains and it really just creates a lovely scene! So much that this time I decided I would actually attempt to document it in my sketchbook, which I really haven’t done before.
I feel like this park would be the perfect spot for Plein Air, but I’ve yet to attempt Plein Air work, maybe someday! For now I’ll be making a mess in my sketchbook after the fact.
That being said actually, my messy sketches of the day happened the next day based on the photos I took. :)
Sometimes in the moment I don’t know what to draw as silly as that sounds, but with time I’ve found the ideas are usually there.
Kinda like how you may think you’ve had a mundane day that isn’t documentable but then the next day you think back and realize all of the small moments that actually made the day and suddenly you can totally turn that day into a sketchbook page. Or maybe that’s just me?
I sat down and looked through the photos and decided I wanted to not just do a typical sketch which is quite different for me.
I typically document days via just simple sketches and honestly I love looking back on those but there is something about scenes like these that you just can’t quite capture that way. Plus I’m doing the 100 Day Project and attempting to get outside of my comfort zone.
I kept my supplies limited. Mildliners to Block in color, Colored Pencils for details, and a bit of Neocolors for colors I didn’t have in pencils and of course for a lil texture.
I did to a messy pre sketch with my Pilot Color Eno Pencil and that really helped since this was all out of my normal process!
It ended up being a lot of fun and came out better than I expected even though it’s super loose and not exact to the references as all. For example soon as we got to the park it kinda got a bit cloudy compared to how it had been earlier in the day, so I kinda just kept with the blue sky vibe.
I honestly thought I was going to be done with just these but I was having fun and kept going and did another spread as well with all of the same things, but focused a bit more on the mix of trees in a very chilled way.
All of this was just really out of my comfort zone and yet it was still really fun. I think past me may of not even tried these because I’m not good at trees/plants but in reality I’m so glad I went for it.
Honestly that’s the biggest thing I’m noticing with the 100 Day Project… I’m doing things I wouldn’t normally and I think it’s actually helping my creativity.
Possibly making me more daring? More adventurous?
Hope you enjoyed this super random mix of Garden pictures + sketchbook chat! I also hope it inspires you to go out and visit a park this month, or just go enjoy natures and let it inspired you!
Sea You Soon!
~Sarah
Lovely sketches!