February at Kew Gardens

Since signing up for a membership in February last year, Kew Gardens has quickly become one of my favourite places. I set off early in the morning for the train to make sure I’m there at opening time, and stay until closing, spending my whole day wandering through the plants and filling my sketchbooks (and often making friends with robins and foxes too!).

I think this was my 10th visit, and I’m still discovering areas of the gardens that I haven’t found before. I love this time of year too, even though its cold, on a clear day there’s a beautiful golden light, and it’s not too busy with other people. I love looking at how the gardens are now, spotting the new buds on their way and imagining what it will look like when I return later in the spring.

There’s endless inspiration to soak up, and every time I go I’m wishing I had more time to draw all the things that I see!

This time I finally went in to the Marianne North Gallery, and I wish I’d been in sooner. I hadn’t heard of her work before going to Kew, and I found her paintings and her story so inspiring - I’ll be sharing more about that in a post about the things that are inspiring me at the moment.

Here’s a few highlights from my day and some of the sketchbook pages I filled while I was there.

I spent some time in the morning wandering around the main grounds of the garden, discovering hidden spots I hadn’t noticed before and drawing the trees around me. All of the benches at Kew have plaques/dedications on them, and I’ve started paying attention to what they all say. A few highlights I spotted were:

“Look to this day, for it is the very life of life”

“I hoped for a pyramid but at least I got a bench”

And for an 85 year old woman - “Forever 21”

In the afternoon I headed for the Palm House (feeling especially inspired by it after reading Marianne North’s story). I particularly loved the shape of the Clustered fishtail palm and filled a few pages with drawings of those.

I kept it simple this time with just a black pen in my sketchbook, as still I’m working on figuring out my style using coloured materials (I’m doing this through life drawing which I’ll share more about soon), and wanted to pack a little lighter this time.

As always, the day flew by and I could stayed for another week. My membership is up for renewal soon which I will definitely be doing, and returning again in the next few weeks.

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