June Round-up - Materials Play, Co-Sketching & Deep Diving into Watercolours

Discover the best of June 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.*

*Sorry for sharing this post a bit late, my round-ups usually come out at the end of the month, but a combination of a heatwave, hay fever and hormones meant I was not feeling 100% last week and I’m a little bit behind.

To recap, June’s theme was Materials Play and I had lots of fun exploring new and unfamiliar materials or things I’ve had in my supplies box that I’ve struggled to find a use for.

Did you try out a new art material this month? Please let me know how you got on, I’d love to hear about it! 🙂

The aftermath of my desk after out ‘Materials Play’ workshop

Here are some highlights from this month, some are free to access for all subscribers, some are for paid members. If you wanted to check out these paid posts, here are the upgrade options - The Creative Flock Subscription options

You can dip in and out of the membership, depending on your needs and circumstances, or there is an annual option which is 20% cheaper than monthly. Any questions about membership, please feel free to drop me a DM or email contact@emmacarpendale.co.uk.

I hope you enjoy this round up! I’ll be announcing the theme for July in my next post and I’m so excited to get started on it as it’s a subject area I’ve grown very passionate about over the past four years. Stay tuned for details! 😁

Review & testing of chisel pens and Jackson’s A6 sketchbooks + drawing time-lapse

In this post, I share sketches from A6 Jackson’s sketchbooks using a new drawing material - chisel pens. Plus there’s a time-lapse of some fast sketching of lemurs.

I loved using these pens, they are now a staple addition to my art supply kit! If you fancy trying them out, there’s a link in the post plus a 10% discount code for Cass Art.

Live monthly session

We let loose with our art supplies in the monthly live session. I added more prep to this so it has more of a workshop feel.

Below is post which contains all the prep for the session:

I loved how differently we all approached the session and the variety of materials used, it was interesting to see how each artist responded to the image prompts, creating intuitive work that expressed their unique style. These playful sessions are great for allowing pure expression, I found it very useful in overcoming my block in using certain art materials and I got some lovely, unexpected results in my sketchbook. I’m considering creating more guided sessions like these in the paid membership, ones that have more of a workshop feel. Is this something you’d be interested in?

Here is the replay, which contains links to the materials I used during the session, plus links to all the things we chatted about:

Thank you to Michele who kindly allowed me to share her sketchbook page from our live session.

My pages from the session

I felt nicely warmed up after the session and spent more time playing with materials using the image prompts.

Brand Ambassador for Deep Deep Light Watercolours

In June I shared some big news, that I have recently become a brand ambassador for Deep Deep Light Watercolours. Thank you for your kind comments, questions and swatch requests so far!

I want to give these watercolours the time they deserve, so I’ll be filming a range of swatching and testing videos which will be posted gradually. However, thank you to

Sarah Lovell

who requested a swatch of Deep Forest collection, I have filmed this video and will edit and share this month.

As mentioned in this unboxing post, Deep Deep Light have generously given me a discount to share with my subscribers and paid members. Details are in the post below, paid members will receive their discount code by email.

Co-Sketching session

Our first co-sketching session was a hit! Thank you to everyone who was able to make it. I enjoyed a blissful hour of drawing in my nature journal, plus I sneaked in an extra 30 minutes afterwards.

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!

As this was so popular, I’ll arrange one free session a month for all Creative Flock subscribers, plus one extra for paid members. Dates will be announced in the Welcome to July post which is coming up next.

Thank you to

Helen C Stark

for allowing me to share the beautiful journal pages she created during the co-sketch session. Helen shares her weekly journal pages in her substack:

Nature highlights from my neck of the woods..

Summer has arrived here and we’ve been fortunate to have some good weather! It’s been tempered with hay fever which has hindered me the past week, but it hasn’t stopped me sniffing these roses which are so fragrant! 💕

Bumblebees have been out in abundance, popping in and out of the foxgloves..

Plus, there are honey bees everywhere. And I mean that literally after witnessing a swarm of honey bees travelling over my garden last week! It happened so fast that I didn’t have time to take a decent video, but it was an incredible sight!

Not swarming, just having a lovely bit of nectar from the astrantia

Here’s a few more floral highlights from this month. What a stunning colour palette!

I mustn’t forget about the other insects I’ve spotted..

top-bottom, l-r: White Plume Moth, Common Garden Spider, Sloe Bug, Damselfly (two types) and Mint Moth.

When i’m not drawing or insect spotting i’m…

Reading: Ettie and the Midnight Pool - by Julia Green, illustrated by Pam Smy

I was fortunate to get a proof copy of this book at the FCBG book conference back in April but I’ll be buying a new copy as the book came out this month and it has a sprayed edge plus all of Pam’s incredible illustrations.

This is a middle grade chapter book with themes of friendship and self-discovery with a dark, mysterious undercurrent that will keep you intrigued.

It was LoveReading4Kids book of the month for June:

www.lovereading4kids.co.uk-Ettie-and-the-Midnight-Pool

Julia Green is a Emeritus Professor of Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University and I was lucky to attend a writing workshop given Julia at the conference. Her short workshop was incredible, it unlocked a story idea in the space of just 30 minutes and gave me more confidence in my ability to write!

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Listening to:

A lot of comedy this month:

The News Quiz - essential listening at any time but particularly now with the UK general election coming up.

Mark Steels in Town - New series of Mark Steels tour of UK towns and cities where he takes a comedic look at their pecularities and uniqueness. The latest episode is Margate, where I discovered the existence of The Crab Museum

Tim Key’s Poetry Programme

Michael Spicer - No Room

And also A Muslim & A Jew Go There - A topical but often humorous podcast that explores current political and cultural events that effects British muslims and Jews. Hosted by politician Sayeeda Farsi and comedian and writer David Baddiel.

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Watching:

Great British Bake Off - The Professionals and The Great British Sewing Bee. I find this type of TV very soothing..

Glastonbury - I enjoyed watching on the BBC, from the comfort of my sofa - no mud, queue for loos or overpriced beer 😆

My highlights this year were PJ Harvey, Michael Kiwanuka and The Breeders

Springwatch - One of my favourite nature series and a must watch for June! I loved seeing the Peregrine nest, kestrels and their filming at Skomer Island. I was so jealous of Meg McCubbin swimming with the puffins! 😍

meganmccubbinwild

A post shared by @meganmccubbinwild

And finally..

I managed to catch one of

Emma Carlisle

live sessions on her Patreon, in June the theme was rivers, to tie-in with the publication of her beautiful new book Time Runs Like A River.

We drew from Emma’s collection of river photos and I took the opportunity to continue using materials I wouldn’t normally gravitate to - for this session I chose soft pastels and charcoal. I felt confident to use them because of the practising i’d been doing throughout June and even though I worked slowly and only did two sketches, I was really pleased with the outcome and i’m excited to draw using these materials again.

And that’s a wrap for June!

I had planned to share the write-up of my trip to Wales, but the post has become more in-depth than I intended. Sometimes, that’s the way it goes with me and writing! 😆But it’s almost finished and will go out to all subscribers in July.

In my next post I’ll share what’s in store for July, which includes a very exciting live drawing session!

As always, thank you for your support here ❤️

If you want to go further with your support, or if you’d like full access to the membership, you can become a paid member of The Creative Flock in just a few clicks. Details of benefits here. Thank you x