Solo Drawing Trip to Cornwall
This past weekend I went on a solo drawing trip to Cornwall. Jamie had booked it as a surprise for my 30th birthday back in November so I’d been counting down to it for a couple of months! I got the train in to London and then a 4 hour train down to Par, and entertained myself with Patreon and Youtube videos, as well as a few quick thumbnail sketches of the scenery I saw along the way.
I stayed in a beautiful apartment in the lovely town of Par, just a short taxi ride to the Eden Project, and I spent my evenings drawing in my sketchbook from the photos I’d taken during the days.
On my first full day, I visited the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The trip was originally booked purely for The Eden Project, but then my Dad mentioned this one to me and I of course had to fit it in to my trip.
The garden was lovely, although I definitely wasn’t there at the right time of year! They had loads of huge rhododendron trees, all completely covered in flower buds and I could just imagine how beautiful it will be once they bloom! And even more so once they start to drop and cover the ground in pink petals. I’d definitely loved to have been there for that!
But I had a great time exploring the grounds, including the Burma rope bridge in the “jungle'“, the farmland, the ravine and the formal gardens. I filled up lots of sketchbook pages while I was there and took plenty of reference photos to go back to later on.
The following morning, I got up a little earlier and headed to the nearby Spit Beach for a couple of hours of drawing on the coast. It was a lovely quiet spot with just a few dog walkers and a family playing in the rock pools. I found a beautiful little rock tunnel and walked along the sand strewn with beautiful blue coloured pebbles. I’m so glad I did this - I was pretty tried when I woke up and wasn’t sure about going, but it was so worth it and I had such a tranquil morning. I would definitely love to see more of the coast in Cornwall.
For the rest of the day, and the following day, I headed to The Eden Project. I spent the Saturday in the Tropical Dome, and Sunday in the Temperate one. One negative I noticed immediately was the lack of benches - I found a bench about a third of the way round the Tropical dome and immediately claimed it (there was room for more people too though) and spent an hour and a half drawing everything I could see around me.
I visited the Eden Project back in 2007 and it’s definitely changed a lot - I didn’t recognise anything other than the domes themselves. It was relatively new when I visited at that time so the plants were no where near as well established as they are now, now it really feels like a tropical rainforest!
I’ll definitely be going back to Cornwall in the near future. There’s so much more I’d love to see and I’d really like to revisit the gardens in the spring/summer too. Heligan Gardens is dog friendly so it would be great for a family trip with Lola too!
In the mean time, I’m planning another solo trip, but this time to Madeira. I’ll hopefully be going in May for 4 nights, visiting the Monte Palace Tropical Garden, a National Park and the beautiful coastline. I can’t wait to share more about that too!
