Well today was the first of six Garden Sketchabout at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney as part of the Sydney Morning Herald Autumn of the Arts festival…and can I just say up front that it was WONDERFUL!!!!!

I was a little on edge with anticipation this morning so after a brisk hot walk across the Harbour Bridge in the sun at 9.30 I headed straight to Tara Tearoom for a morning cup of Barry’s Tea. Alissa, strangely did the same!! If you haven’t noticed I have found another tearoom to hang out in! I LOVE this place and the owner is SO special too! (not to mention the scones and the cosy collection…sorry I am a cracked record I know!)

Alissa and I got to the gardens before 11.30 and shortly after arriving we found a sketcher already in action! She joined us in a ‘warmup’ sketch at the lotus pond.

In true Liz-style I managed to sneak in a second warm up sketch before we went to meet up with all the sketchers at 1pm. What a great turn up – over 40 sketchers I think! This page also contains a quick sketch of a chinese lantern that I did while talking to a sketcher from England! I also love drawing maps of where I go each week and a business card of the restaurant from the afternoon tea which didn’t fit on the upcoming page (too many cakes- but more of that later!)

After an initial welcome the sketchers scattered all over the garden. I was doing too much talking (so out of character?!? NOT!) and found it hard to concentrate on sketching. It is occasions like these that training your hand to ‘reflex sketch’ comes in handy.

Another sketch from the same spot – funny I am always drawn to the built structures visible in the garden!

We then had a wonderful session at the band lawn – meeting more sketchers, swapping sketchbooks and a group photo.

9 of us from the Sydney Sketch Club finished the afternoon with a special Sketchabout afternoon tea at the Restaurant. Do I need to say that we had a great time in many ways!

Finally, for me, I walked back across the Harbour Bridge and sketched the gardens in context. this shows how important the garden is to the city of Sydney!

Here is a photo of where I was when I did that last sketch on Saturday. One of the simple joys of my life in the last year is discovering that I can easily incorporate a walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge into many of my social engagements.

I wasn’t sure that the guard would like me sitting on my sketching stool but he didn’t notice and unfortunately disappeared – otherwise I would have asked him to take a photo. As you can see it was fairly quiet at the time I was sketching.

What a wonderful wonderful day – I am one hyped up but somewhat exhausted little sketcher now! And we do it all again next Saturday!