Where Colour Grows Wild

Photo by C. Laranjeira © OutOfTheLinesPress

July greets us with full-hearted sunshine and a paintbox of possibility. All around, colour is humming — in wildflower meadows, sun-warmed leaves, and the ripest of fruit. Have you noticed it too? How nature spills over with shades no tube of paint could ever quite capture?

This week, we wander out to meet colour where it lives.

The idea is simple: what if your palette wasn’t inside your pencil case, but out there — in the woods, the garden, the cracks in the pavement where something small and determined grows? Look closely. A golden buttercup. A dusty violet thistle. That mossy green you almost missed under your feet.

Bring your sketchbook or colouring book (or a scrap of paper, or a napkin). Find a quiet spot. Let your eyes wander. Match colours. Name them. Collect them with your eyes or with your pencils. You’re not copying nature — you’re learning its language.

You don’t need to be exact. Let your memory wander. That red berry? Maybe it’s flaming orange in your drawing. Maybe it glows. That’s okay. You’re building a colour story of where you are, how it felt to be there, and how you saw the world in that moment.

Some ideas to try:

• Create a “wild palette” page with swatches from things you find outside

• Press petals and leaves into your sketchbook and draw around them

• Invent colour names inspired by your surroundings (Sunset Beetroot? Cloudberry Cream?)

You could even start a ritual — a weekly wander, a palette-collecting walk, a habit of observation. Let it ground you. Let it open your eyes.

Let the season colour you back!