One way to fill a weekend in spring, joining a botanical art course at Auckland Botanic Gardens. Despite being the only person of my gender or generation on the course it was a good weekend learning some new techniques, including using embossing tools, masking fluid, and a twig!

To start with some outdoor sketching, harder than it looks when the day was a mix of sun and clouds, ever changing shadows and tones!

Indoors sketching was much easier, if still rather difficult to make 2D look 3D…

Had fun using Indian ink and a twig found outside to do a quick but I think effective sketch.

Found a rather nice maple like leaf to sketch with coloured pencils, using an embossing tool for the veins, and then tried a watercolour version using masking fluid. The work of all the students on the course, as usual I like to be a little different!