Lavender in the front garden

So, Urban Sketchers Dublin, like many chapters of Urban Sketchers, have had to come up with new ways of sketching together and keeping in touch as a community over the last few months. For a good while, we chose the virtual route, as we were literally stuck at home. We are currently in our first phase of deconfinement. The Irish government are taking a very prudent approach. As things stand today, I won't be able to go to the hairdressers until the end of July!! (secret #1: I do my own colour anyway; secret #2: I have started cutting my own hair, and really, it's not too bad!!). So it will be a while before we can sketch together again!

When Pat chose the theme of flowers for this week, I was so happy to go out into my front garden and sketch the lavenders there. They're just starting to pop. And I did get to experience the typical urban sketchers scenario of people coming up to me and asking me what I'm doing. In this case, it was my little neighbour - she's about 6 years old. I hadn't even started to put paint to paper at that stage. And then she got distracted by Sumi, my cat, who made an appearance. My little neighbour called her friend over, but her friend wasn't allowed to cross the road. But that didn't stop the friend's little brother (about 3 or 4 years old), who decided to continue on down the road without any supervision. So I got up and called him back. He refused to come back, and I ended up going to his house further up in the estate to tell his parents. The father wasn't surprised. The little boy is only allowed to play in front of their house but seems to be a free spirit! Anyways, he was found. No harm. Everybody happy. And I finally got to continue my sketch! I think you can see in the second plant from the left that I was distracted from my painting. But you know what! I love it! That's what urban sketching is all about. Even if it's just in my front yard!