August Round-up - Goldfinches, Bears and Beach Bodies
Discover the best of August in The Creative Flock + studio highlights
Hello! And if this is the first post you’re reading, welcome! I share these posts with all subscribers at the end of each month and it’s a lovely way to highlight all the things we’ve done in the membership and share some behind-the-scenes snippets from my studio.
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Theme-less for August
During August I kept things simple and we went ‘theme-less’. As much as I love to hone in on a specific topic and use it as a springboard for creative exploration, I needed to be realistic with what I could manage alongside my family and home commitments during the summer holidays.
Thank you for your support in this and to those who reached out with kind words, your understanding means so much!
Holiday sketches
Learning from my overpacking lessons when I visited Skomer in May, I packed light for my trip to Croatia. But I still brought more art materials than I used!
The small amount of sketching I did was at the beach, drawing holiday-makers in their bikinis and budgie-smugglers, whilst my husband and son went for a dip in the sea.
I was donning a one-piece swimming costume and an ultra-wide sun hat, I looked like a Victorian bather in comparison! 😂
How’s your August been? Do you have any travel or creative highlights to share? I’d love to hear about them! 🙂
Live monthly session
I brought back a favourite drawing session and used some of the many images we didn’t use the first time around. Replay and reference images are linked below and are available for paid members.
Replay: Bears and Wolves drawing session
Hello, Here’s the replay of our Bears and Wolves drawing session. Thank you to those who were able to make it live, if you want to watch it back or catch-up with the replay, the video link is below, along with the image references, timings and links to things we talked about.
Deep Deep Light Watercolours giveaways
I received a huge response to my giveaways on Substack and Instagram, which ended on 23rd August and the winners have been announced. Thank you to everyone who entered, I loved reading about your favourite trees and birds, an unexpected bonus was discovering birds and trees I hadn’t heard of.
These are some examples and I look forward to researching these further
If you’re still keen to get your hands on these watercolours, I offer a 10% discount to my free subscribers - use code emmacarpendale10 at checkout to redeem.
Paid members receive 15% off sitewide. The discount code will be sent to you in your welcome email, please check your inboxes after upgrading your subscription.
Submission to the SWLA Exhibition
My main creative focus for August was submitting to the SWLA Natural Eye exhibition and I just managed to get a piece created and submitted in time.
In this in-depth post for paid members, I share the concept and process behind this painting as well as reflections on the result and ways I could improve my painting skills in future.
In early August I finally managed to complete the write-up from my trip to Skomer Island:
Travel diary: Pembrokeshire & Skomer Island
Back in May, we took a family trip to Pembrokeshire in Wales. The main reason for our trip was to visit Skomer Island, a birthday gift from my husband that I was very excited to redeem. This was my first visit to Wales and I'm pleased to say the experience exceeded my expectations.
Co-Sketching sessions
We had two more co-sketching sessions this month, thank you to those who came along!
I wouldn't have created these drawings had I not blocked out that time, that’s what’s so good about co-working, it holds you accountable. Thank you to Emma Carlisle for introducing me to these!
There’ll be two more free co-sketching sessions in September, available to all subscribers and I’ll share details in my Welcome to September post, which is coming next. Subscribe to stay updated.
Nature highlights from my neck of the woods..
We came across this large caterpillar crawling across our path, excited to discover it was the caterpillar of an Elephant Hawk Moth! It looks like this after its incredible transformation..
Sunlight through the tree canopy - nature’s disco ball.
When i’m not drawing or insect spotting i’m…
Reading:
This book went on my wish list during Bird month and I snapped up a second-hand copy to take on my trip. The book is an ode to the small yet significant and looks at the benefits of slowing down and paying closer attention to our surroundings.
I’m thoroughly enjoying Maclear’s unique perspective on this subject and her words speak to me on a personal level. I need to re-read it and make notes as it’s sparking lots of creative ideas in me.
Listening to:
A lot of Croatian rock and electro-pop. On holiday, music was playing everywhere; through speakers all over our resort, in the hotel lobby, in restaurants, on the boat trip we took, and in the taxis to the local town. It wasn’t to my taste, but my son loved the pop music and came home with new additions to his Spotify playlist.
There was an incredible street musician in Sibenik who covered songs from the Beatles to Nick Drake with absolute ease, and I managed to do a quick sketch of him.
And finally..
I’ve not done a lot of additional drawing this month, but I did squeeze in a bit of ‘sofa drawing’ late in the evening.
I hope you enjoy this round up! I’ll be announcing the theme for September in my next post.
As always, thank you for your support here ❤️
This publication is reader-supported and enables me to do what I love, which is creating art and illustrations and sharing it with the community here on Substack. If you would like to access the full membership, consider upgrading your subscription, details of benefits are here
Looks like you had a great time in Croatia, loved to see your sketches Emma!
Budgie Smugglers 😆 Loved all the sights you saw, amazing moths!