It's been a long time since I've done any drawing. I did a fair amount of art during the big lockdown last year but this winter I've been focussed on all things Pocketry - namely the brand new poetry podcast, Pocketry Presents which seems to have taken over my life (but in a good way!). You know I love a new creative project!

So it was wonderful to spend the afternoon yesterday, sitting under the banksia tree in the back yard doing art with my girls. We were attending an online art session with artist Claire Mosley and mentor Melissa Turnbull from the nature connection group, Firekeepers. You've probably heard me mention them before. We attend their nature camps in the school holidays and I have recently started mentoring at the camps as well as joining the board at the last AGM.

We started by doing some warm up drawings to get ourselves in the mood for making art. Except these were exercises with a difference - we had to draw a creature from a picture without looking at the page as we were drawing! This exercise is genius because after you see your results and have a good laugh at yourself, anything you make after that has to be better :) It's a super good way to turn off the internal art critic that likes to tell all of us that we can't make art and who are we kidding?

While it feels strange to be doing art and nature connection online at least we were outdoors and drawing things from nature. I didn't have to go far too find what I wanted to draw. I just picked up some banksias pods, flowers and leaves from where I was sitting.

I'm hoping to spend a lot more time out here, making art and hanging out with my girls. What are you doing at the moment?