Hi everyone, and welcome to the June newsletter. I write these each month to share seasonal reflections from nature and gentle ideas for sustaining a regular creative practice. You’ll also find details of upcoming workshops and other seasonal ideas.
June is a month that I often find myself wanting to rush through. The school year is busy, summer holidays are on the horizon, and it’s easy to slip into a mindset of counting down to what’s next. Yet whenever I find myself doing this, nature gently reminds me to pay attention to where I am now.
The countryside feels completely different from just a few weeks ago. The bright greens of spring are beginning to deepen, meadows are full of wildflowers, and the hedgerows are crowded with elderflower, dog rose and towering foxgloves. On warm evenings, swallows dart and chatter overhead as the low sun turns everything gold. There is so much happening right now that it seems a shame to miss it while looking ahead to another season.
And yet, despite all this abundance, June can be a surprisingly difficult time to maintain a creative practice. In February, careful looking is needed because there seems to be so little to notice. In June, it is needed because there is almost too much. The landscape is overflowing with colour, movement and detail. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, or to assume there will always be time to come back and look more closely later.
This is one of the reasons I value nature journalling so much. It gives me a reason to pause, choose one small thing, and spend time with it. A spray of hedge woundwort, the intricate flowers of self-heal, the changing colour of a meadow. The act of drawing and recording helps me appreciate what is here now, rather than wishing myself into the next season.
Perhaps that’s what creative practice offers at this time of year: not another thing to do, but a way of paying attention. A way of fully inhabiting these long days before they, too, become something we’re looking back on.
And while I’m trying not to wish June away, I have also been enjoying planning for the autumn. I’m excited to be able to share some upcoming dates with you below…
Autumn art club and workshops booking now…
Hot off the press! Here are my upcoming art club dates and workshops for autumn, shared with you my lovely subscribers first! Click on the image for more details or the ‘book here’ button to be taken to the booking form.
Slow down and enjoy June fully with these ideas….
Take a wildflower walk
Although they are brightly coloured, not all the wildflowers out at the moment are very noticeable and you’ll need to slow down and look carefully to see them amongst the grasses. Look out for the bright blue of Speedwell, the delicate ‘vetches’ and the yellow bird’s foot trefoil. The Wildlife Trust have an excellent guide which you can use to identify the flowers you see.
Discover the world of moths
Moths are beautiful creatures, some are stripy, some are spotty, some are speckly, all with strange names, shapes and colours. Potteric Carr Nature Reserve are offering you the chance to learn more about them on one of their Moth Discovery mornings in June.
Normally to discover the full range of what British moths have to offer, you have to look for them at night when the majority of our species are flying. However, with our specialist moth traps we are able to harmlessly capture moths at night using light and then check them in the morning. Join our expert moth trappers as they talk you through their findings and unravel the mysteries of the moths from the night before! You’ll have the chance to get up close and personal with our incredible fluttery friends.
If you enjoy gentle creative ideas, nature-based inspiration, and invitations to slow art workshops in Sheffield, you’re very welcome to stay subscribed — and to share this with anyone who might enjoy making a little more space for creativity.
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