Sketching Plants: tips and techniques
Speaker: Anna Ribo
Date: Tuesday 11 March 2025
Time: 3pm - 6pm
Once you have booked onto the event an invitation register to the Zoom meeting will be sent via email, including information on how to join the meeting along with the privacy statement.
***Please note that this event will NOT be recorded but materials will be shared with the participants after the session.
In this course, we will focus on tricks and techniques for sketching plants. We will look at how to find shapes that make drawing plants easier, how to capture the character of plants and we will touch on atmospheric perspective to create depth to your sketches.
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 when you have a spare few minutes 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.
Target audience: The course is aimed at beginners to intermediates - and anyone who would like to loosen up their line or is feeling a bit rusty and hasn’t practised quick sketching techniques for a while
Programme: A relaxing and enjoyable late afternoon course starting at 3pm and finishing at 6pm with a short break in the middle.
Items to bring: You will need something to draw on and with, ideally an HB and a softer pencil and fine-liners. But Anna will discuss materials so wait with any big purchases till after the course.
Testimonials
"So many excellent tips and techniques to practice. I have no drawing experience or confidence but I'm surprised what I have been able to produce in the time."
"Wonderful, thank you"
"So useful, thank you"
"Thank you so much for this course. It's been great to refresh and develop sketching skills - will get practising!"
"Thank you so much, it's been really interesting and informative. I wish I had this in my pencil case when I first started my design course. It's been absolutely brilliant".