A week sketching in Tuscany ’26

A selection of drawings from my sketchbook over a week’s drawing in the hills of northern Tuscany in April 2026. It felt such a privilege to be there just a week after the last snow fall and just as the leaf buds and blossom were emerging on the fruit trees. We stayed in the hills above Florence on a beautiful and very rustic farm, dining on their delicious home grown produce amongst the ducks, chickens, goats, olive trees and two very large horses.

There is nothing quite like drawing to loosen the designer’s mind. Sometimes my sketches will find their way into a design, but more often than not it’s purely an exercise in ‘seeing’, getting back to the pure essence of looking at a subject and finding a language to convey it to myself and the viewer.

I spend a great deal of time in my studio, designing, doing admin, social media posts and all the many ways I can spend my day to keep my business functioning. However there is something ‘real’ and immediate about being out in the landscape, surrounded by nature, the sounds of birds, insects, wind, the rustle in the trees, the smell of forests or freshly mown verges, the warmth emanating from the soil, that feed my design soul.

A few lines on a page can conjure a scene, a memory, an afternoon, a conversation. They can become a design, or just remain a visual diary, potential future reference. Either way the process is very necessary for an artist or designer, to exercise the visual muscles in the same way a gymnast needs to keep their body exercised, a designer who doesn’t draw will become stale in their seeing and therefore their designing.