My week in drawings

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This morning Mary and I met our coffee group friends at the "secret" cafe in canbury gardens along the river. The wind teased the pine trees. The waves on the river winked at us through the tall oaks. And we sipped our coffees, licked our ice creams and chatted about our summer plans. 

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When I need to clear my mind I often step into the garden and inhale the bracing, clean scent of lavender. It sweeps all the cobwebs out of the corners of my mind. Then I can head back to work again. 

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This morning Mary and I took the train into London to enjoy the sights and sounds of the city. It was a misty, mizzly morning, and it felt like we had the streets to ourselves. We wandered Covent Garden and Waterloo bridge with wide eyes. 

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Today, amidst deadline prep and housework, I zoomed into town to get some treats for my husband's birthday celebration tomorrow. I took ten minutes to sip a latte and sketched the people around me. I love coffee shops. People chat, read, work, and no matter what they are doing they seem contended and connected: either in conversation or in concentration on a task. A little sketch for a busy day. 

My week in drawings

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Last weekend  we went on an "aventure" (as my toddler daughter calls it) and cycled through Richmond park and along the river to Richmond village. Then we had coffee and croissants under the tall, broad plane trees and watched the rowers sculling under the bridge. 

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I love the sculptural shadows cast by a lovely, big summer hat. It's so fun to play with hats in my drawings. I got this hat years ago when we lived in Cape Town in a small seaside town called Hermanus. 

My week in a drawings

It was a bright and cloudy day, perfect for wandering along the Thames with Little One in the early morning. Even at 10 am it was almost empty; we shared the cobbled walkway with a couple of pedestrians and a flotilla of seagulls. We listened to Big Ben chiming the quarter hours ("Bing bong!" said Little One) and watched the waves ripple over the low-tide waters of the river. 

Thick, fluffy clouds scudded across the sky.  The sunlight flashed morse code: sun, shadow, sun, shadow. The city winked back: glimmer, glint, glimmer, glint.

I wished I knew what the sun and the city were talking about... what was their secret conversation? 

Little One and I met a friend and we shared hot, buttered toast, berries, and lattes (but only steamed milk for the littlest of us). Then, we covered our faces with "mer-may" (mermaid) stickers, much to the amusement of the clouds and the city; they winked and blinked their approbation. 

It was liberating to do something so brave. It took a lot of courage to pack up the stroller, bundle up my almost-two-year-old and take a thirty minute train journey into the city. 

"I studied 

there

, just across the river." I pointed out the building to Little One. I used to wander those streets every day with visions of art in my head. 

"Wow," she said. It is her word for anything she approves of. 

All it took was a short train journey to open up our eyes. I had forgotten that London was right there, spread out like a fairy city, just beyond the doors of Waterloo Station. 

Flags of Love flying above Royal Festival Hall

My Week in Drawings

It's June already? Where did the time go?

Summer in London: the roses are blooming, the wisterias are long gone, and everyone is in a brighter mood. We've just had beds dug into our yard, and I can't wait to start planting flowers!

The ballerina completes a grande jeté and lays an egg.....

Those colours! 

My week in drawings

'

This week I.....

.... found the perfect shade of blue-green to paint the forest landscape the dominates the next two picture books I'm working on. The brightly coloured African animals will really pop against this colour. This colour is sometimes called 

eau de Nil 

(water of the Nile).

.... was inspired by this quote. It made my heart spin: a full revolution. I've decided that my criteria for accepting any project needs to be whether or not it causes a revolution in my heart. 

.... want to tell more stories. If the world isn't made of atoms, but tiny stories, that means you have millions of stories in your heart; billions in your body. Can you hear them? Your stories are enriching your life and singing songs of encouragement. 

What's your story today? 

Did you like any of these drawings? Feel free to share them on Pinterest! 

Not so daily sketches

It's murphy's law that the minute you proclaim to the universe (or the internet, that's the same thing, right?) that you're ready to start working, you get steamrolled by the worst head cold you've had in months.  

I'm lying on the couch drinking tea and blowing my nose while Little M sorts through our recycling in the kitchen. She is judiciously taking all the bottles, boxes, papers and containers out of the Westminster City recycling bags and scattering them on the kitchen floor. 

I don't mind, as long as she's quiet and playing independently and doesn't mind that I've been rendered horizontal. 

So, rather than pushing myself forwards, I'm taking a step back and reviewing where I am and where I want to go. I'm paging through my sketchbooks, and leafing through my journals. 

I used the last page in my teeny-tiny moleskine sketchbook the other day.  Here are a few selections from the past few weeks. I'm not sketching every day, but I'm sketching regularly, which is good enough. Don't you think?

Hopefully I will get over this dreadful lurgy soon. 

What were you up to this week

? Please let me know in the comments. 

*  *  * 

And finally...

Did you like the drawings in this post?

Feel free to pin them, heart them on bloglovin, tweet them, or share them on Facebook. And, make sure you subscribe or follow along to get even more weekly inspiration and follow along in my creative journey. 

See you next week! 

{This was the last page.}

Weekly drawings: week 9

St Hippolyte's Church Zell am See

{The tower of St. Hippolyte's Church}

We have spent the week in Zell am See, Austria, where my husband snowboarded and I relaxed with Little M and filled my sketchbook with Alpine views. 

I packed a minimalistic art kit: a tiny moleskine sketchbook, a few pens, pencils and brushes, and a small palette of watercolour paint.  I felt a bit confined by the small selection of supplies, but that's not a necessarily a bad thing when it comes to art. Sometimes limiting the options forces one to solve problems more creatively. 

I'm planning to do two travel posts in the next week to highlight the beauties of Zell am See and Salzburg.  But, for now, I'll just share my little sketches. 

{The mountains}

Stadt Platz, Sell am Zee, Medieval town

{A 16th century building on the town square}

{Experimenting with watercolour techniques}

Festung Hohensalzburg castle Salzburg drawing

{The Festung Hohensalzburg castle in Salzburg, started in 1077}

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