Over 100 days have now passed since the coronavirus changed all our lives. The weather has been a challenge with July seeing a real mixture of heat, cold, wet and grey. However, many of us continue working in our gardens and vegetable plots. It’s a great pleasure picking raspberries for breakfast, lettuce for lunch and then deciding will it be potatoes, courgette, peas, chard or broad beans for the evening meal. For some of us it’s the first time growing fruit and vegetables and even the very experienced have had successes and failures.

With so much time working in our gardens there is plenty to catch the eye as subjects for drawing and painting. Plants, trees and vegetables all have marvellous shapes and colours and the mixed weather has produced wonderful cloud shapes and dramatic skies.

With the gradual lifting of some restrictions a few of the art group felt able to meet up this month for the first time since February. Working outside ‘en plein air’ in the Frogmoor garden and vegetable plot gave the artists ‘social distancing’ space while allowing for companionship, exchange of ideas and a renewed enthusiasm and focus.

Sketches from our first en plein air session