Part 1 Ann Mortimer begins her series with a seasonal look at her rapidly changing garden in autumn and how she uses it to fill her garden journal

Welsh Poppies , pen and wash, A4. Here I started with an ink drawing of the poppies, added watercolour washes then fitted the writing around the illustration. It is fun to play with positioning the text and I often add more writing to the page as the design develops.

Heleniums and Garden Seat , pen and wash, A4. This is an example of how the garden journal can be a useful place to make a preliminary sketch for a possible larger painting. I enjoyed making the sketch without the pressure of producing a finished work.

Title Page , pen and wash, A4. On this title page I wanted to include elements of my garden, such as favourite plants and gardening equipment. I made an outline with a fine liner then added watercolour. It makes a colourful introduction to the journal and was fun to do.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

■ How to begin an illustrated journal

■ Materials you will need

■ Ideas and inspiration to help you begin

What first gave me the idea of writing and illustrating a garden journal? I think it was gazing one day at the pile of unframed watercolour paintings in my studio. They had been lovingly created and had been deemed good enough to keep, but I knew that most of them would remain unframed and not on display. What was the point of creating more to add to the pile?

So, I thought, why not put my paintings together in a book where they could later be looked at by simply turning the pages? Together they would form a record of my life and, notably, my garden. I knew that, next to painting, flower gardening and recording nature in its many forms were what I most loved to do so why not combine the two in a visual artist’s journal?