Things To Do… Finding inspiration through the garden & flowers

I’d like to share with you a little insight into how I use art, creativity & gardens to help and inspire my Grandma. Every week in the summer I go round to her house for an hour and we sit in her ‘art room’ and draw.

Surrounded by paper, coloured pencils and art magazines, I spend time with her, encouraging her to draw and use her art work as a therapy to help her cope with her depression. Grandma, many years ago used to do occupational therapy art classes to help her over come the harder days.

By spending time with her each week, we get to chat and I get to share my art tips which I learnt at school and college.  Since working together on our creativity Granny has come on leaps and bounds in both her feelings and art work.

Today armed with several of our arty photographic greetings cards, I set off for our weekly art session. The look of excitement on Grandma’s face was priceless.  Grandma has a huge admiration for Michael’s work and I thought that his images would be great to work on this week starting with… ‘Purple Trumpets’.

I love how the garden inspires people to create art, make sculptures and take photographs to capture its beauty. Gardens are a place for people to sit and reflect, think and relax. Grandma has a passion for art and flowers, and flowers are one of her favourite subjects to draw. Whilst she emerges herself in the drawing, I have a tinker with some drawing too, stopping to help her when I need to. I’ve had a go at the very minimalist ‘Snowdrop’ card today.

The best thing about all of our time spent together is that Grandma told me… ‘you are my inspiration’.  To know that I’ve helped her overcome her darker days even if its for an hour a week, its an hour well spent for me (and Granny!).

I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog post, thanks for reading!