Not Chelsea Flower Show, but Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden!

Our two day summer is over again, but it gave me enough time to finish my sketchbook page started in my last post! 

Keeping sketchbooks is essential for me as an artist; it's ultimately not about creating a good layout, or beautiful page, it is really like circuit training. I deliberately chose to give this a botanic book look, but infact the different illustrations are exercises in using different mediums, without which I feel I would lose or forget technique. 

The gardening glove/secateurs were done in 2B/6B pencil, my favourite sketching softness. Pencils range from 9B's (the softest and darkest) through to HB which is medium and then getting harder through the H's, the hardest I have is 3H and that really is cutting paper stuff! Moving on to the snail (who incidentally ate all my basil and sweet peas) which is done in black fineliner and watercolour. On the left the lavender and geranium is a rough outline in HB pencil, then soft coloured pencil, as is the large lilac blossom and the "chewed honeysuckle" (also no doubt chewed by my friends the snails or caterpillars). The tip of the lilac tree is a combination of watercolour, fineliner and gouache and so on one page I have gone through several "stations" on my training circuit. On the left page the honeysuckle/woodbine is done purely in watercolour, whereas the rose chafer beetle is coloured pencil. Having completed my circuit I feel like an athlete who has done a complete body workout, training my focus, observation, line, shading, painting and ultimately design. I'm absolutely not about producing "eye candy" for social media, but my doublespreads are an artistic workout that keeps me fit, theming them helps me to focus on what I should draw, because otherwise I'd just faff about. 

Finally, the fairy, well as I mentioned my garden is nothing to look at, but I do believe I've got fairies at the bottom of my garden. As a child I loved fairy stories especially those illustrated by Arthur Rackham and my parents used to call me "Fairy Triptoes" (not because I was elegant but because I tripped over everything!). The fairy in my illustration is called Lilectra and she and her friends live in my lilac bush, I see their little glowing lights flitting around of an evening. You think I've gone bonkers or had one gin too many? Nope, I found the evidence to prove it...... see?

Can't argue with that can you? I'm not alone either! In Iceland the maps also include the houses of "the little people", the fairy folk. I only hope that the fairy that lost this bit of wing was moulting and that a new tip has grown to replace it.