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Made it!
Wow, that was a marathon adventure and like all good runners, towards then end I had to slow down rather than just stop and call it quits.
But like all things, its when you’re stretched and challenged that growth occurs.
The daily (or technically I should say sustained) practice of showing up to paint has indeed kept me creative and accountable for doing so.
And I have found that my muscle memory and my hand eye co-ordination has improved and that I’m as surprised as anyone when I can capture a plant in a few strokes of a brush and with a limited colour range.
In short, practice makes you better at looking and capturing.
Which shouldn’t surprise me really.
We know if we exercise that our muscles become stronger but probably don’t talk much in those terms of the process of practising creatively.
And we should, because it does work the same way.
I have thoroughly enjoyed naming the plants in my garden – many of which I have inherited from the previous owners or Mother Nature.
And I have a unexpected sense of satisfaction to have two books full of catalogued plant names.
But I am glad it’s finished now and as the season winds down I won’t have the challenge of finding something new to include.
With hindsight 100 was a lot and maybe 75 would have suited me just enough.
So when I calculated that there were only enough pages in the book for 96 I took that as a divine compromise 😉
I have been falling and leaping my way through this #100dayproject of Painting Something From My Garden Everday.
It’s not quite been everyday in a daily sense – more like nothing some days and three things another.
But for the most part it’s become a regular practice and I’ve kept up…just.
Some days I accepted a less than polished finished piece in favour of doing something rather than nothing.
I’ve also embraced my garden weeds and found them to be pretty and deserving of a place in the final book.
I’ve developed a mix of approaches to method and media.
On some rainy days I was forced to complete the work inside and I found the results were far better than when I’m painting irl.
However the feeling of, the experience of painting outside is far greater and brought a greater deal of well-being that gets lost as soon as it becomes studio work.
And I have enjoyed playing again with coloured pencils, pastels and collages solutions to painting white flowers on white paper.
That’s about it for now as things reach the final stretch – thank you for reading.
I am a third of the way through my #100daysproject of painting 100 things growing in my garden.
Any sustained effort on a project has highs and lows; I have had days of lag and disinterest, days where time is just too short and I fall behind and days of joy and peace found painting in quiet spots.
Mostly it’s been a good discipline. A bit too time consuming on some days.
But I’m loving having a little book recording my garden growing.
And above all it’s forced me to identify and name all the plants I’m recording which has been very enlightening and informative.
On with the next!
On June 1st I decided I’d commit to doing a 100days project. There were a few reasons for this:
For Christmas I got given a seed advent calendar which has been a lot of fun but also a lot of work – 25 different kinds of annuals to grow has kept me on my toes in the greenhouse. But it also means I have a lot of lovely plants to enjoy.
I had also enjoyed my residency at Winterbourne H&G so much that I had decided to try and document my own garden in a similar matter. However as is often the case when things are at home, it seems harder to paint and draw in my own garden. I have found time to do some studies and textile work but it doesn’t document the changes as I’d hoped because I can’t keep up the frequency of work needed.
Lastly, I’m back working at MAC (hurrah) and when I’m focussing on delivery I often find my own creativity takes a backseat.
So for all those reasons I started 100days of drawing/painting something in my own garden.
It doesn’t need to be finished or good and it can be quick or slow and I’m also finding I automatically apply several styles to my work but I’m not over-thinking it – just doing it, noticing and letting it be whatever it is.
Here’s the first six days.
Just popping in with a few catch-up pieces from my residency at Winterbourne House and Garden.
It’s been hard to catch a good time to be out painting because of the sudden changes in weather and temperature. One solution has been to work in miniature, although these paintings still take quite a time.
Everything is growing very fast and I’m trying my best to catch a little bit of it all as there’s no way I can do all of it justice. The Auriculas have long been a favourite of mine so it was nice to capture them.
This little guy had to be caught on canvas having visited me whilst sketching one day and had a good long proper chat and even hopped around the side of me as if to see what I was doing.
Protea_© Claire_Leggett
A little painting inspired by the beautiful South African Protea via my local Marks and Spencers!
I’ve saved my favourite place for last – Frigiliana.
Back in July 2015 we had a week in Granada (which you’ve already seen lots of here) and then we had another week by the coast.
Frigiliana is inland and was a short drive from where we were staying.
It just clicked with me – it’s very small but so cute and artistic with lots of creative industries like pottery, weaving and painting and the nicest people.
I might even retire there one day if I can learn some Spanish!
Frigiliana by Night © Claire Leggett
This piece was the demo I began when I taught The Spotted Dog workshop (here) which I’ve finished now
Well that’s it folks for my show-and-tell work from last years holiday – hope you enjoyed 😉
Everything has a season so they say and this year has not been my season for the garden (poor neglected thing).
However some past efforts continue to pay dividends – thank you Roses, that white weed thingy, the cow-parsley plant, my patio pots and of course the Alchemilla Mollis.
I snipped a few things I could find the other day – all pleasingly lime green, green and yellow (thank you garden for self-theming the colours) and popped them into my 25 pence bargain jug for an afternoons play with the paints.
Hope you’re enjoying our UK Bank Holiday weekend – but home or abroad I hope you’re enjoying a little tea and cake where-ever you are.
I bought a little scrap bag of Liberty fabrics that have spurred me on to use a more pastel colour palette. I’ve been relying heavily on my Peobe masking fluid to protect areas of the painting as I was going (see 2 and 4 above) Can’t recommend the stuff enough – I even bravely used it on finished areas and it didn’t bring anything off the painting surface with it when it was removed. The hardest part was not leaning in and eating the fondant fancy!
© Claire Leggett Tea and Cake
It’s been a great year for tulips in the garden.
I re-subscribed to a magazine and got some Sarah Raven bulbs as a freebie.
And they have been beautiful – big, blowsy flowers – interesting colours and shapes. Apricot Beauty was the first to fully flower last week.
It hurt A LOT to cut three of the nine stems to bring in and paint.
But here they are immortalised 🙂
© Claire Leggett Apricot Beauty
