July Favorites

   Some months are full of progress, others hold small moments of pleasure while slipping past like water flowing under a bridge. July was the later. The fact that I am writing this post on the 6th of August gives credence to it's swiftness.
  We have had fluctuating heat waves punctuated by storms resulting in enforced flexibility and  spontaneity.

  School finally ended this month, releasing all of us from the continual strain of overscheduling, and bringing with it the relaxation of summer and the end of uninterrupted working hours for me. As I type this people are reading out loud over my shoulder. It also brought an investigation of new places as we have been trying new locations for our summer of picnics as well as for my 'almost' urban sketching sketchbook.

Here are a few places visited:

   St. Peter is a bit out of my regular loop but thanks to a reader, I 'discovered' this nice sport and natural area. One of the sketches in the book is of this interesting wall surrounding a tennis court.

We visited beautiful Bruck an der Mur via train, which is always one of my favorite ways to travel.

During the journey, I read a wonderful new book which is on the subject of my other passion- tea. It has really inspired me to create a few new tea themed illustrations, so keep an eye out for those in the autumn.

I visited the schlossberg several times to sketch and included a picnic or two for general luxury while sketching. This turns out to be a  great way to spend family time and sketch simultaneously.

   Where the sketchbook took up the majority of my time during the first part of the month the last third was devoted to individual projects and office work. I spent a lot of time scanning images, writing e-mails and planning projects. I also tested a few techniques and prepared a few layouts. Here are my projects from that time:



Gold palette test:

Salt technique with botanical sketches:

Three peppers: Should this become a farmers market series? Let me know what you think.

Perhaps my favorite thing this month was the trip to Schloss Laxenburg. It is such a haven of coolness and tranquility on a hot summer's day.

   Urban sketching is named every month as a highlight and one of the reasons is that working in a studio is very solitary as well as time and detail intensive. There is something so freeing about spending time with other artists creating work that doesn't have to be great while learning from each other's techniques. This month we met on the stairs of the Schlossberg and drew the roofs of Graz.

Well, those were the highlights of my month. What were yours? I would love to hear about them in
the comments.

If you liked this post check out my other monthly highlight posts.

- June Highlights
- May highlights
- April favorites- Spring has sprung
- March Favorites