Revolve Project: 24/52
Seasonal Sketches: Finding Beauty in Winter
Hello!
This week, I explored winter botanicals through a delightful sketching session shared with my mum. Our subjects were some often-overlooked treasures of the late winter garden: dancing hazel catkins, plump rose hips, and the elegant tassels of Garrya.
A Study in Restraint
Sometimes, limiting our tools can expand our creativity. For this session, I deliberately chose a minimal palette: just a paynes grey colour pencil and watercolours. This constraint forced me to focus more intently on form, texture, and the subtle variations in colour. Sketching nature is always very forgiving so I felt relaxed with this kind of subject, happy exploring mark making and capturing the forms without worrying too much about accuracy.
The rose hips offered a striking contrast with their bold, structural forms. Their warm red tones a welcome punch of colour against the more subdued winter palette. I had at first left them without colour to keep everything simple, but couldn’t resist adding colour at the end, which I think worked well, especially against the complimentary green of the Garrya leaves.
From Garden Sketch to Project Inspiration
The sketching session with Mum left me wanting to sketch these subjects more, so much so that they've found their way into my Revolve plein air project this week! For those new to following me on Substack, Revolve is my year-long project to make an A6 Plein Air sketch every week. This practice is helping me gain confidence in sketching outside, creating a visual diary of the landscape around me in my garden and farm in Somerset.
There's something rather satisfying about documenting these seasonal markers, both in my garden and in the wild hedgerows and fields beyond. These sketches serve as a personal record of winter's subtle beauty, capturing moments that might otherwise go unnoticed in the sometimes rather depressing depths of Winter.
Sadly, I didn’t have time to record and edit a video of me sketching this week - I will endeavour to next week! In the meantime, here are a few photos I took of the Hazel catkins in the Winter sunlight - feel free to draw from these reference photo’s if you would like to! I’d love to see if you do!
That’s it for this week! Thank you for reading x
Emma
Where you can find me - Instagram | YouTube
My other substack- The Sketching Sisters Substack