Summer is the best time for some relaxing life drawing outside, but every summer I get a bit disappointed at how little I actually do it. So join me on a day when I managed to get out and get sketchin‘!

We’ve been lucky to finally have some warm summer days here in Copenhagen, so I try to spend as much time as I can outside. I’ve been wanting to go back to Tisvildeleje for a while. I’ve been especially excited to experience it during summer as I’ve only been there in the autumn, so I decided to go on a sunny Sunday afternoon. However when I got to Nørreport station I was disappointed to find out that the only S-trains that were in operation was the B line (Farum to Høje Taastrup) due to some road work. There were other ways to make it to Hillerød and from there to Tisvilde, but it was going to take 2 hours and I just wasn’t up for it. So I decided to change plans and go to an old favourite and much closer destination – Hareskov, just outside of Farum and easily reachable with the B line.

I must say that Hareskov is a bit boring to me, so I wasn’t as excited about the trip, but once I stepped into the shadows I felt that familiar scent of earth and woods I quickly forgot about my disappointment and started enjoying myself. Since I’ve walked around this forest a lot in the past and felt quite familiar with it I was less interested in a walk and decided I’d rather do some sketching from life as I don’t really do enough, I think. So the next challenge was finding a comfortable spot to draw at and an engaging “model”.

I walked around for a while not being inspired by anything. I had my botanical sketchbook with me, so I had to sketch some kind of plant, but at this point in the year there just don’t seem t be that many exciting plants and flowers to draw. It might also just be that they don’t grow in the shade. Finally I settled on some wild geranium and found myself a nice bench.

I was surprised by how quickly my little geranium started withering, so sketching felt like a race against time, which wasn’t quite the relaxing experience I had in mind. On the other hand it was a good exercise for speed which I feel I’m not very skilled at. I brought quite a lot of markers with me for the colouring, though I was lacking in pink-violets which is what I needed for my geranium, but purple still worked out quite well as a replacement.

I feel that I have become too dependant on having a large selection of colour options to chose from and I think that has made me creatively lazy. While it is great to have a big selection for many reasons and especially when trying to capture a realistic representation, I like how creatively challenging limited palettes are and I love the unexpected results they give. Though that would be an exercise for another time.

When sketching botanicals in markers I’ve been enjoying outlining with a colour pencil. This time however I didn’t bring any colour pencils with me: the markers took all the space and every time I bring pencils I seem to break them, so I thought I’d spare them this time. Instead I outlined with a thin black gel pen, which is my lazy and less sophisticated go- to option.

The trip was nothing too spectacular, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I love that there are all these small forests easily accessible by public transport from Copenhagen. These are not amazing mind blowing forests, but they are still so welcome and I hope the little nature around the city will be preserved and hopefully enhanced in the future.

Do you have a favourite nature spot near Copenhagen? What is it? Even though I lived here for quite a while there are still so many unexplored areas for me, which is both a shame and exciting 🙂