It was such fun reading all your comments on last week’s giveaway post. I loved seeing familiar names from in-person classes that I taught back when the world was normal. And thank you so much for all the nice things you said about my teaching – it warmed my heart.
Now, first things first – it’s time for the Week 1 prize giveaway!
Jill Keller
Congratulations, Jill ! You’ve won the American Journey Voyager Sketching Set.
Week 2’s lesson of the week is “52 Ways to Sketch a Garden”. It’s a perfect complement to the “Flowers & Foliage” painting lesson I featured last week, but this lesson focuses on sketchbook page design rather than on painting techniques.
I made this lesson for my local “Sketching at Summerhill” class two years ago to encourage everyone to get outside and sketch my pretty summer garden during a July workshop. It’s different from any of the other tutorials I’ve done, and I’m glad I can finally share it with the rest of you.
To create the lesson, I had to put my ideaphoric brain into hyperactive mode! My original goal was to have 50 different ideas or page layouts for garden sketches. It was easy to come up with the first 20 or 30 ideas, but at that point, I had to really start pushing myself to keep those creative juices flowing.
By the time I got to 47, I was tapped out, and the lesson I presented to the Summerhill Sketchers that month was, by necessity, titled “47 Ways to Sketch a Garden”. It’s bugged me ever since that I hadn’t met my goal of the big 5-0.
So when it came time to format the lesson for my new Leslie Fehling Studio website, I was determined to come up with three more ideas…just THREE. That’s all I needed to meet my goal of 50.
And, with a fresh perspective and the benefit of time to let my mind wander, I ending up with not just three but FIVE more design ideas! 52 in all, if you can believe it!
I was pretty pleased with myself. 🙂
Many of the ideas for this lesson came from my own sketchbooks.
Gardens and flowers have always made my heart beat a little faster, and my impulse when I see a perfect blossom nodding in the sunshine is usually to sketch it.
Even a vegetable garden can make me grab my pen and sketchbook to record fleeting moments of a perfect summer day.
I enjoy dreaming up new ways to sketch subjects like these, and almost every one of my garden sketches has a different look or style to it. It’s intentional on my part. But that sort of variation doesn’t come easily for a lot of people.
Many of my students tell me that they get excited about sketching but when it comes time to begin, they end up staring at a blank page, thinking “What should I draw? How should I lay out the page? What can I do that would be different from my other sketches?”
Or they jump so quickly into drawing that they forget to pause and take a few minutes to think about what they want to do with a page before they dive in. Later they see that their lack of planning has limited their options, and they’re left wishing that they had taped off a border or left some space for a page title.
Well, this lesson is designed to help you over those hurdles! A quick look at the options in this lesson at the beginning of a sketching session will set your intention and get your sketch off to a strong start.
Beginners will appreciate many of the simpler layouts that feature a single subject, while experienced sketchers will enjoy more complex and challenging ones. You’ll find ideas for garden subject matter that you may never have thought to sketch before and page design ideas that can carry over into all your day-to-day sketching.
“52 Ways to Sketch a Garden” will jumpstart your creativity and inspire you to create unique and supremely personal sketchbook pages.
This isn’t just a collection of line drawings. Each of the ideas in the lesson is categorized with a descriptive title in bold, colorful text, so you can browse through the pages quickly and find an idea while you’re out sketching, and each design includes a descriptive paragraph that explains the project. Many even have additional suggestions for variations on a particular idea. There are more ideas here than you could sketch in an entire summer!
Bonus
I’ve included a bonus section that features my best ideas for how to use borders and lettering to enhance a sketch. It also includes sources for lettering styles and practical ways to transfer lettering to the sketchbook page.
And remember, all PDF lessons from Leslie Fehling Studio are downloadable, so you can take your phone or iPad with you on location and access all the content. Or print them out and keep a hard copy handy.
The reasonable price of only $18.00 for this lesson means that each of the 52 ideas costs only 35 cents! How’s that for a good deal? 🙂
So, I hope you’ll give this week’s featured lesson a try. It’s a resource that will keep on giving year after year as you explore your world on the pages of your sketchbook.
If you haven’t tried Kilimanjaro watercolor paper, then you’re in for a treat. The 12″ x 9″ Kilimanjaro Watercolor Paintbook from Cheap Joe’s that I’m giving away this week is filled with 20 sheets of 140 lb. Kilimanjaro 100% cotton cold-pressed paper, interleaved with 20 sheets of lighter-weight sketching paper. Kilimanjaro watercolor paper is one of my favorites – it’s what I use for all of my handmade sketchbooks. I love the bright white color, the texture, the lifting capabilities, and the sturdiness of the paper. And the lightweight paper sandwiched between each heavier sheet gives me a spot to jot down notes (a handy feature for a travel journal) and sketch composition thumbnails. The first page of the journal is a sheet of 300 lb. paper, which can be used to create a personalized cover. (Value: $26.49)
88 five-star reviews on Cheap Joe’s website testify as to how well-loved this product is. I’ve used Kilimanjaro Paintbooks for several of my travel journals – they come in a smaller 10″ x 5-1/2″ size that I like for trips. Click here to see all the sizes that are available.
Be sure to leave a comment below to enter this week’s giveaway from Cheap Joe’s. (US addresses only, please.) The winner of the drawing will be announced in next week’s “Lesson of the Week” post on August 17, 2021. The winner is drawn using a random number generator.
One more thing…
I thought it might be fun to ask a question each week that you could answer in the comments to keep things interesting. (This is optional, of course.) I think it’s fun getting to know each other better and hearing the stories behind the name. So this week’s question is…
What is your favorite garden memory?
Good luck, and happy sketching!
65 Comments
When a Hummingbird flew into my greenhouse and couldn’t find the open door or window. She was flying up and down against a closed window and I followed her up and down with an extended index finger. She got the idea and hopped on for a ride outside. The feeling of that trust was magical.
What a lovely giveaway. I have always wanted to make a small sketchbook and this paper would be perfect. I also enjoyed your review and discussion of the “52 ways” PDF. As for favorite garden memory, it would have to be catching fuzzy caterpillars in an old mayonnaise jar. Amazing that as a young child, bugs did not phase me in the least and now I freak should a spider finds itself into my home!
This is a timely lesson – what a good layout for remembering the past season’s flowers and vegetables from what now looks more like a desert than a garden. Thanks for the inspiration!
My very favorite garden memory is one of my Nanna and I snapping the ends off just-picked green beans from her parsonage garden in Ohio when I was about seven or eight, some sixty years ago. Thanks for jarring that memory. 😊
My favorite garden memory is of an elderly neighbor, Mr. Baker, who would come knocking on the door saying he had some new flower plants for us. He would thin out his garden and give the extra plants to all the neighbors. We had gotten quite a collection over the years from him. Rest In Peace, Mr Baker.
Your attention to detail is amazing. I have two of your workshop handouts, and yours are the most complete ever!
OOH, and my favorite garden memory is making Dollies from the blossoms of the Rose of Sharon in my mom’s garden!
My favorite garden memory was our first garden on the farm we purchased. I was never one to garden before then, and when I harvested my first fresh tomato I was hooked. I now have raised beds and I like canning the harvest. It gives me great joy, knowing God does supply.
My favorite garden memory was picking raspberries with my mom and making jam all day as steam swirled around us !
The second has me and my two brothers running through the gardens catching fireflies ❤️
It’s hard to name just one favorite garden memory, it’s more of a list. 😉 This lesson looks like a great way to record those memories while enjoying the here and now.
So excited to explore this lesson! Thank you for sharing your gifts and hard work with us!!!
My favorite garden memory is cutting fresh flowers from my grandmother’s huge flower bed – she had everything! I especially liked the irises back then!
I had the luck to take one of your summer classes at your home and I still love the sketchbook pages I created during that class! I learned so much and I look forward to learning more with you in France!!
My husband had a garden of which “Walter”, a beautiful plump rabbit visited daily. I did a 22 x 40 watercolor of the scene during a very difficult time in my life. It was cathartic…
Oh I love this lesson. Painting flowers and gardens is my favorite thing! My favorite garden memory is when Steve and I visited Sissinghurst in England we stayed in a B&B on the property and I spent my birthday in the garden. Another garden memory is when we visited Monets Garden in France on my 50th birthday. It helped inspire me to take up painting! I love flowers and gardens. 🌺💐🌸
This is my first year at the community garden. I am learning many valuable lessons for next year’s garden. I have made many mistakes yet I am pleased with the abundance of fresh vegetables. Next year more flowers!
My favorite garden memory is the wee garden my father planted….it occupied a plot not more than 2’x2’…taking up a small corner of the back of our house. I remember the tomatoes, basil and mint…all he would grow…and turn those tomatoes into his famous pasta sauce. The mint would be added to lemon to grace his flank steaks…yum!
Congratulations Jill for the first win!
I love, love, love this and so impressive to create that many sketch ideas!
Thanks for the chance to win. Your 2 ways to sketch your garden class looks so wonderful. My favorite garden memory has to be of my Grams and both of us wearing aprons and gathering four of clock seeds to plant for next year. I can remember those tiny black seeds falling into my apron and us gathering them up from the kitchen table where we gently opened out aprons onto newspaper. I always loved being int he garden with my Grams! IT was my most favorite place in the world.
My favorite garden memory……I spent a lot of time, when I was a child, at my grandparent’s home. My Grandpap had the most beautiful roses that climbed up a trellis on the side of the front porch. I can still smell them! And his grape arbor! There were swings under the arbor and it was cool and dark in there. My cousins and I loved to spend the hot, lazy summer days swinging away or playing with our dolls in the shade of the arbor ❤️
My favorite garden memory wasn’t of my garden (I have had many) but of the “pick-your-own” strawberry fields we visited. The whole family would go! We would take a picnic lunch and spend the whole morning picking. What fun! My adult children still talk about it.
Loving your Flowers & Foliage tutorial!!
My favorite garden memory is from childhood. I loved being in the garden with my father. He was always working or just walking in the garden. My love for gardening came from watching him. He had a night blooming cereus plant that he would wake me up to show me the blooms. After I was grown I had one and I would do the same for my children.
One of my favorite garden memory surrounds fuchsias and begonias. They were planted among the woodland backdrop, creating beautiful bursts of color. Paths were lined with them, intermixed with ferns and grasses. My mother put much effort into our garden and it showed!
I’m excited to look at all the page layouts you’ve come up with! I’m so glad to have
this class content in my “Leslie” trove!
One favorite memory is having my friends over for lunch and eating out in the garden. We have a table in there with an umbrella and it is so wonderful to be able to share my special space with them
This lesson looks wonderful——I love all your ideas for organizing a page. I enjoyed the class when you came to San Clemente and we painted at Capistrano Mission . My Plein air group paints there also (before COVID) and it has some beautiful gardens to sketch and paint. One of my favorite journal pages was from that day at the Mission. And of course I have to include Monet’s Garden! So inspiring and breathtaking.
Lovely give away, thank you for the chance to win.
As a child I remember looking between the rows of vegetables and imagining tiny people, fairies living amongst them. Love that the garden inspired my imagination.
Thank you Leslie for all the helpful tips and lessons.
My favorite garden memory is riding on the back of my Grandad’s tractor where the plows connected and dragging my feet in the new plowed garden.
I freely admit I’m not a “garden” person (I tend to like “wilder” settings just as they occur) but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy this class! I use the 52 (yes, how’d you do it?) ideas for almost anything I’d like to record in my sketchbook—they’re very adaptable concepts. Not a garden memory but I cherish recalling a huge and vigorous (and thorn-guarded) clump of wild blackberries just outside our home office door. Picking a handful of sun-warmed wild berries provided the perfect coffee break from the morning’s work.
Some years ago we traded lawn for garden space on our the corner of our city property. The first year I planted nothing but zinnias, grown from seeds bought for 10 cents a pack from Dollar Tree. The fresh soil yielded healthy, tall zinnias with stems the size of one’s thumb. It was spectacular — it literally stopped traffic. Dog walkers and others headed to the nearby park changed their route to pass by the garden. We could hear passers-by marveling out loud at “the show.” That garden now has more diversity, mostly shrubs and perennials, and I’ve never been able to recreate those amazing zinnias in that space since that first-year garden.
My favorite garden memory is doing the garden tour in Kennebunkport Maine. The flowers were spectacular. I didn’t paint or sketch at the time, and I wish I did because it would be wonderful to go back and look at the memories.
My favorite memory was seeing my beloved dad, who loved working in the garden, puttering around there. We always had fresh tomatoes all summer long, and then later, he planted blueberries … Yum!
My favorite garden memory is playing in my grandmother’s garden among all her many varieties of day lilies. Such precious memories!
Those memories of gardening still to come.
I made the folded sketchbook a few weeks ago and felt that stuck feeling when trying to fill the pages. This will be just the ticket to complete the project.
My favorite garden memory was a trip to the fabulous Buchart garden in Victoria British Columibia. My husband and I spent the entire day and evening there finishing up with a beautiful dinner and a great firework display. It was really one of the nicest gardens we have ever visited. Love your work, Leslie. 🙂
Many years ago, as a lover of pesto, I decided to grow my own basil. Not quite sure at the time how to “harvest” the leaves (I thought “one and done”j, I planted 32 basil plants! I am still known in the neighborhood as the “pesto princess”. These days 12 plants are enough to keep everyone stocked with the green gold.
My favorite garden moment is when my potted-patio is freshly planted and my pup, Coco and I relax on my hammock reading a good WWII book with a refreshing libation. 😊
My favorite garden memory is of “my” hummingbird feasting on the trumpet vine—mesmerizing.
When I was very young, I remember helping my grandmother plant, weed, and water (no garden hoses, only watering cans!) her enormous flower garden. Although she was a farmer’s wife and was responsible for the huge vegetable garden that kept us fed, and many animals, she still had time for her favorite “BEAUTIES.” She was always trading seeds, cuttings, and duplicate plants with the other church ladies in her Sunday School class.
My favorite garden memory is picking tomatoes that smell like sunshine.
My favorite garden memory would have to be from my childhood. My mother had a beautiful garden behind our garage, ( which doesn’t sound pretty, but it was) which was bordered with rocks that were collected from summer vacations. Also any other available space was also used as garden. Many roses climbed over the fences as well. One day the neighbor told my mom she didn’t know what had happened but all the buds were gone off her roses. Later that week they were found in my chest of drawers.
Such a fun prompt!
I fondly remember picking strawberries with my mother in her garden “out back” so that we could make strawberry shortcake for dessert – with real whipped cream and homemade short cakes 🙂
I have this lesson and love it! My favorite garden memory is of visiting Butchart Gardens years ago. I highly recommend it!
Planting a garden with my mother. I have so many memories of what we talked about and how lovely our garden turned out. Really have two memories to mention. Planting peonies with my father. He got them from his dad. When I moved west he brought me some of those peonies. When I moved to I dug them up and my son and I planted them here. I call them my four generation peonies. Wonderful memories.
I love the way you lay out your pages, can’t wait to take the class to stimulate some ideas.
My favorite memory is of my mother picking raspberries in her garden.
she had her very own “raspberry picking outfit” the hung by the door in summer.
In it she totally covered from head to toe to protect her from the mosquitoes who LOVED her raspberries. Then bug spray.
This is so fun. I loved reading the entries from other participants.
My favorite memory was tromping barefoot through the muddy garden pathways of the vegetable garden on very scorching hot, humid days in East Texas.
What a lovely prompt! There’s so many happy garden memories, but I think my favorite is that my parents would let us spend all winter going through the Burpee’s seed catalog to pick something new, different, or unusual to plant that spring. Purple carrots, blue potatoes, giant sunflowers…we tried so many new plants over those years. This lesson set would be a great way to recapture some of those experiments. Thank you for linking the lesson to some wonderful memories.
I grew up in NYC apartments, so our “gardens” were wooden window boxes, and in elementary school our teacher showed us how to plant beans, so that was my first vegetable garden and those were my first vegetable garden tenants.
I have to admit that I prefer growing flowers, I grow them in abundance, and I love to paint my own-grown flowers.
I follow your love of flowers and how you make your art with them. I
Someone mentioned making dolls from rose of sharon flowers, that jogged a memory of my Grandma making hollyhock dolls for me. She grew them by her backporch steps.
Oh my gosh that is also one of my favorite garden memories, making hollyhock dolls.
I loved hollyhocks and today hardly see them. Might just be where I live. When I saw them in England 3 years ago, it brought back so many wonderful memories.
This was the first lesson I bought. I love it. My favorite garden memory is of wanting a garden when I was about 6 years old. My father made a very small rectangle on the side of our house and gave me some zinnia seeds to plant. I watered them regularly and they grew! It was wonderful and those have been my favorite flowers since. I guess truly I have one earlier memory of staying with my kindergarten teacher while my father was in Vietnam and Mom was able to go meet him midway through his tour. My kindergarten teacher would get up every morning to water her garden and I would help. I think that was why I wanted my own garden when Dad got back home.
I have so many garden memories, it is a favorite place of mine. When I was very young, my grandmother had a nursery on their farm, with a long green house. She raised bedding plants and I always thought I was helping her when I played in her sand pile filling small pots. She had beautiful beds of pansies, lots of begonias and other lovely flowering plants. The whole farm and gardens hold dear memories for me. Probably the reason I love to garden so much now and often choose plants for painting subjects.
When I was in my 20s and living in Boston, I loved lilac season at the Arnold Arboretum. It was just glorious to see so many blooms there! A favorite childhood memory is my Grandma wrapping some cut flowers from her garden for me to take home. Now my own flowers bring me joy!
I like your idea of asking a question; it is always interesting to view others opinion; even if your don’t agree. Looking forward to it. janice fleetwood-bean
Favorite memory of the garden is the smell of the honey and watching our bees flying from the hives coming back with bright colors of pollen and wondering what plant it is from.
Thank you for your creative ideas and hospitality.
My favorite garden memory is living in the city when little and having a Victory garden. We had to walk about a mile to the nearest school where we each had a little plot to plant flowers and vegetables. I believe they were called Victory Gardens because they were started during the second World War when rationing was common.
I feel so lucky that you have posted this lesson on line, so many ideas. My favorite memory dates back to my parents during World War 2, planting a victory garden behind our home with a variety of vegetables and flowers. Rationing was common so we really appreciated our own supply of vegetables. I still have my rationing book with a few coupons left. It was a nice way to try to do our part during the war. My favorite flowers were the tall yellow and purple iris.
Hi Leslie, I realllly love the “May” batch of flowers–so pretty! and I love that style, so exuberant. And it was an inspiration for me for one of the two paintings I did as entries for the artwork for the local garden club show. Favorite garden memory–very small backyard at a condo in Santa Rosa, CA, quite shady, but we got so much to grow there–California poppies, which got rather leggy, penstemon, foxglove, and I forget what all, but blue star creeper that covered the flat ground. So charming! The only patch of land I have had, otherwise containers, which are still wonderful.
My favorite garden memory is when I was very young and my mom’s cousin took me out to a fairy ring of violets under a full moon. MAGICAL!!
We live in a VERY hot and dry area in Central California, so growing lush gardens with lots of blooms is a blood sport. Nevertheless, I have fond memories of a secret garden we managed to grow at a house we no longer own. It was filled with English roses, foxgloves, Lamb’s Ears, and lemon thyme growing in the cracks of a sandstone path. There was a lovely garden bench at the end of the path–I would sit on the bench in the mornings sipping my coffee and reveling in the beauty. Maybe someday I’ll try to recreate that little piece of beauty where we live now. Thanks for the opportunity to share my garden story.
When I was young we use to go to a Tulip festival held every year in Washington state. Rows and rows and rows of tulips. Literally a sea of tulips in every color imaginable that went for what seemed miles (and daffodils). And they had another section that was a garden area you could take a tour through with all sorts of unique types of beautiful tulip varieties. It was a family outing each year that marked the beginning of Spring being just around the corner.
My favorite garden memory is picking tiny forget-me-nots, lily-of-the-valley, and violets for my mother. She then put them in a tiny, uniquely shaped glass vase (wish I had it now) and placed the vase on the TV console (before that, the radio console), under a painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I’m one who appreciates wonderful gardens — but I’m not really a gardener myself! Perhaps when I think of a favorite garden memory it’s not the flowers I adore that comes first to mind, but helping my grandparents in their garden (and THAT was a garden!) every summer. My little hands and short legs were perfect for picking strawberries and I was enthralled by the tall corn on the cob that was growing in front of me.
I love the beautiful lessons you’ve laid out here, Leslie. Thanks for offering the drawing.
One of my favorite garden memories was painting at a plein air event in a local public garden which was full of hydrangeas at their peak. The location was the former home and gardens of Eddie Aldridge who was known for propagating and patenting the first Snowflake Hydrangea, a beautiful double flowering oak leaf hydrangea. Each flower has multiple petals and turns pink as it ages. Someone wrote a blog that tells the interesting and humorous story of how it came about. http://debsgarden.squarespace.com/journal/2019/6/20/little-known-history-of-the-snowflake-hydrangea.html
My kitchen window flower box struggled for years. One year I bought a bunch of plants from the nursery, and then on Mother’s Day I asked my husband and my boys to fix up the window box for me. They fixed the drip sprinkler and planted everything for me, and now every year my perennial window box grows back in the Spring.
I may be too late for the giveaway but lavender is my favorite and your corn is my favorite today.