Sketching plants on location. Tricks and techniques for sketching plants.
Date: Thursday 17 July 2025
Time: 1.30pm - 4.30pm
Location: Queen Mary's Garden, Regents Park, London
**Please note that if persistent rain is forecast the event will not go ahead and we will refund your ticket.
Join Anna Ribo in a summer garden for an afternoon of sketching plants. In a small group, we will practice observation skills, identify basic shapes, look at how to best capture the characteristics of different plants and plant groups and how to add depth to your sketches. The course is more about giving you the confidence to practice than having to produce a masterpiece and there is no pressure to perform. There will be time for questions. The course is suitable for beginners to intermediate students.
Queen Mary's Garden in Regents Park, London, has a variety of different planting styles, from Mediterranean to classic rose garden, that should provide lots of interesting places to sketch.
Sketching regularly, even if only for a short time, will quickly improve your skills and give you a keener eye when choosing plants. You will be encouraged to loosen up your line, train your observational skills and enjoy the process of sketching rather than producing a masterpiece at each session. The aim is to give you the confidence to practise.
There will be practical, quick exercises that you can repeat at home to improve your skills.
Sketching is a great way of quickly capturing a garden atmosphere. Being able to do a quick sketch to illustrate an idea is very useful when with clients. And observing plants and their characters through sketching can help you when choosing plants and assessing a planting scheme.
Anna Ribo is a planting designer, garden advisor and gardening and sketching teacher. She used to be head gardener at the gardens at Long Barn but now focuses on her own practice and projects as well as offering freelance planting plans for other professionals. Her work is unashamedly plant based.
Materials:
Please travel light. You will need a hardback sketchbook or paper and a clipboard to hold your paper. A small selection of pencils, for instance a 4B, HB and 2B pencil. Rubber and pencil sharpener. Fineliner pens. Tissues. You can also bring materials such as charcoal, watersoluble pencils and water brushes and anything else you might like to use but not acrylics and oil. We will be moving around the garden. Also consider a small, foldable chair, a sun hat and a drink.