Garden Tea Party – The 52-Week Art Project 2026

Welcome to this week’s 52-Week Art Project! It was the 30th week of the year, so our creations were inspired by the prompt: Garden Tea Party. I’ll be sharing my art for the prompt below, as well as adding it to the gallery.

Feel free to hop in anytime if you’d like to join me on this year-long project. Though there’s no obligation to stick to it every week of the whole year. You may come and go as you feel inspired or able to.

I’m really late with my post this week. I usually try to share my creations by Sunday evening, this weekend was just too busy for me. The gallery is always available though, so you can browse or, if you’re participating, upload your creations anytime.

The gallery will also feature in all future posts as more people are starting to join now, so all participants as well as my readers can discover your art too. As always, click on images to zoom.

Wk30 Prompt: Garden Tea Party

So, as you can see, I didn’t illustrate an actual garden tea party, but created 2 pieces which contain elements that come to mind when I think of a garden tea party: pastel colours, gingham tablecloths and a bouquet of flowers on the table.

I also think of bunting strung across the branches in a garden, flowers all around, floral desings on summer dresses, ice cold peach tea or a teapot with hot tea, freshly baked scones and tasty sandwiches cut into little triangles.

I’ve never actually had a garden tea party, but these are the elements I think of and how I’d probably set one up if I were hosting one. Let’s not forget the umbrella for shade and pretty napkins too. Would you join me for such a tea party?

Where does your mind go when you read the prompt?

Garden Tea Party Inspired Art – Gouache, Fineliner, Brush Pen

This week I used cold pressed watercolour paper, so it was textured, which added some movement and irregularities to my lines. I really like how these turned out in the end.

Please excuse the dull lighting on some of the photos, all of this art was done on my lap while reclined on the sofa. There was dim lighting most of the time as I’m keeping the blinds down to keep the sun out of the house (heatwave), and I use just 2 lamps in the house during the day to see what I’m doing. I sometimes put the ceiling light on to take a few pictures, but that light is so bright, it drains my energy (light sensitivity is an ME/CFS symptom).

Let’s walk through my process and thoughts behind these drawings.

Creating The Background Gingham Pattern

I started by creating the pastel gingham patterns. I just used a flat, square-tip brush and some very watered down gouache.

Using the grid lines on my cutting mat as a guide, I simply pulled the brush from right to left across the page (I’m left-handed) to paint straight lines. Once those lines were dry, I turned the page and did the same in the other direction with the second colour.

The idea here is to have the 2 shades overlap and create a third shade. Since the gouache is so watered down, it goes on translucent and you can see the colours layer over each other. I think it worked a little better the second time around, on the purple page. The orange was not watered down enough initially, but I think I fixed it as I went.

I’ll be sharing both pieces simultaneously this week, since the process was the same on both, but I actually completed the yellow and orange one first, and then did the purple and pink one later.

Arranging The Floral Shapes

After the initial backgrounds were dry, it was actually the following day, I went back in to paint some floral shapes. This time I used a round-tip aquabrush with the very watered down gouache.

For the floral shapes, I used a mix of the 2 original colours I had used to create the gingham patterns. Starting with the main, large flowers I wanted to feature. On the orange one, I painted Anemone shaped flowers, and on the purple one they’re more Echinacea shaped.

I didn’t try to draw specific varieties here though, I just went with shapes that I wanted to draw.

Then, using the same brush and techniques, I painted much smaller florals and leaves on both pieces. Making sure to also add some unopened buds. Using the smaller flowers as filler, like you would if you were arranging in a vase for the table.

Drawing The Florals With A Brush Pen

Using the painted shapes as a guide, I loosely drew the florals with a brush-tip pen. This was the first time using the brush tip on textured watercolour paper, so I started really carefully. Pressing lightly and carefully meant most of the lines on the orange one came out pretty uniformly.

I was less careful on the second time around and drew a bit more freely. You can see how I varied pressure and held the pen more loosely at times to create more wobbly and staggered or broken lines. This piece has more interesting lines on this first layer.

Adding Details To The Botanicals With A Fineliner

After the initial shapes were drawn with the brush tip, I took a 0.1 fineliner and started adding details to the petals and leaves. I’m always amazed at what a difference just a few tiny little lines on the petals can make. The flowers come alive and look less flat.

You can see here, how the lines placed around the tip and base of the petals, as well as along the edges of the long pointed petals, creates a type of shaded effect. This gives the petals a curved and layered look. It’s as if one petal is making a shadow on the one next to it. I love this technique.

Compare the flowers and leaves with the added lines to the ones without in the photos above

I then went back in with the brush-tip pen to thicken some outlines and create a bit more variation in the line work. Especially on the orange piece where the initial outlines were a bit more uniform. I also added some shadows around petals, leaves and the centers of the flowers.

Adding The Final Touches

They’re already present in the previous photos, because I probably forgot to take photos for that step. But before adding them, the space around the flowers seemed very empty to me. A bit disconnected. So I decided to add little floating cirlces around the flowers.

Perhaps they’re fireflies (which I actually saw for the first time just the other night!) or maybe they’re dew drops catching the sunlight. Either way, they float in the empty spaces, connecting everything and drawing the eye around the piece.

I really like how these turned out. They’re not exactly Garden Tea Party, but they’re tea party adjacent. Kind of tablecloth and vase of flowers – the all important tablescape for a garden tea party.

That’s what I mean by the #CH52art prompts being up for interpretation. We do not have to create a literal depiction. Just create whatever comes to mind, whatever we’re inspired to create.

Anyway, here they are in their entirety. What do you think of this style of drawing? Anything you like or dislike about this technique? Constructive criticisms are welcome. That’s how I’ll grow.

Would You Like To Participate?

If you’d like to join us, you can hop in (and out) anytime you like. It’s a low stress project, so you can go at your own pace. Being chronically ill means sometimes I can make 3 pieces of art in a week and other times I will struggle to make one. There’s no pressure here. Life happens.

Next Prompt, Wk31: Under The Sea

I’m really excited for this one! I’d love to see how everyone else interprets the prompt this week.

You can upload an image of your creations to the gallery using the button below, or just browse here:

The #CH52art Summer Gallery 2026

* If you are struggling to upload your image, feel free to send it to me and I’ll upload it for you.

* If you add a link to a social media post or online storage service where your creation has been uploaded, the widget should automatically load the photo from the URL you share.

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