Landscape Gardeners

 

5/5/22 Landscape gardeners working in the pouring rain.

Our neighbors across the street are doing a major landscaping job all around their house. I made a series of sketches of their house several years ago when they put on a big addition. If you look at those sketches, you can see the small bushes and trees that used to be in front. All of those are gone now, as are some other plants in their backyard.

Unfortunately, I keep missing the action. The day they had some large trees pruned and chipped, I didn’t notice until the workers were already done and putting their equipment away. Then the next day a team of gardeners planted a bunch of new things in front (and seemed to be working in back, too), but I only caught the tail end when they were cleaning up. But when people are moving around, it’s easy enough to fill a page with small gestures.

I was inspired by Nishant Jain, who routinely fills entire sketchbook pages with  “tiny people” he sees in coffee shops and other public spaces. If you keep the drawings small, you can capture a lot of actions quickly.