Hot summer days, delicious food, some music and cool hippie flair - mixed together with the picturesque backdrop of Tuscany and Provence. What more could you wish for?

HandPicked Picnic

a sweet and savory getaway

A beautiful sunny day is the perfect setting for a Picnic!I’d bring along my favorite handwoven basket full of all the necessities. A big blue checked blanket to spread beneath a shady tree.Now all we need is you and me!

HandPicked Picnic

Entry for the hand picked challenge. Nothing like a picnic in the rolling hills of SoCal wine country.

If I were to go on a PIKUNIKKU (Japanese romanization of the word picnic), I would vouch for a nice long hike underneath the sakura blossoms in March. There would be nothing more fitting than an ornate and delicately welcoming Japanese bento box, along with some seasonal mandarins. The "ben" in "bentou" comes from the word convenience, which shows in the cute and compact shapes of each food item. While I was growing up, I was fascinated by the creative ways people would dress up common ingredients, such as cutting up hot dogs into octopus shapes, or the "onigiri"- rice balls "molded" into different forms with a variety of seasonings. Now I can make my bento boxes however I want, but for this illustration I wished to satisfy my childhood fantasy with the picture perfect vegetables and octopus hot dogs, with full on Japanese headband and silly octopus face.

I chose to illustrate a New England style beach picnic- I've definitely been missing this type of gathering lately!

IG: e.milyhepler

Here's my entry for the Let's Have a Picnic challenge :) Where I spend most of my summer, we take every opportunity to have a beach picnic. Lots of kids, laughter, a cool dip, whatever is in season at the nearby farms, bubbly and beer, cheese of course, and if we're lucky, the most gorgeous sunset.

This is a scene of a restaurant crew gathering for much needed food and beverages after a tiring Sunday Brunch shift.

All the best picnics I've been on have the same three ingredients - my favorite people, amazing views, and delicious food.

This scene depicts a typical picnic at this stage in my life - munching on a spread of olives, pita chips, hummus, veggies, almonds and cookies with my husband and three boys while taking in views of whatever beautiful mountain trail we happen to be hiking. Don't forget to wash it down with some summit seltzer and snap a few pics to remember the feast!

My entry for the Handpicked Picnic Challenge 🌄

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that right now I think I might like to have a picnic somewhere far, far away—preferably alone, with a coffee, and a piece of chocolate cake. If only for a little while, just to be able to look at our planet as a whole and realize that there is beauty that remains despite it all. ~Allyson Wilson IG: allyson.wilson_art

Bear and Rabbit go on a picnic