Nature journaling is the practice of drawing or writing in response to nature. This fun, relaxing practice helps you to connect more closely with nature, and results in the creation of your own unique nature journal. Both the practice and the end product are important.
The practice calms your mind and increases your attention to detail and appreciation of beauty. It improves your recognition of different animal and plant species, and your understanding of where and how they live. With time, it also improves your ability to observe, to draw and to write.
A journal allows you to capture the moment (a sunset, a view, a critter, a flower, a fungus…), and recall observations which would otherwise be forgotten. The entries in your journal can give you inspiration for other creative projects, such as writing, painting, textiles, music, other crafts… the opportunities are endless. A nature journal can also be used to compile species sightings and other more scientific observations that are of great value to citizen science projects.
A journal can be anything you want it to be. Mine ranges from the personal to the scientific, from records of facts and realistic images to imagined beasts, scenes and stories. And many things in between.
Nature journals can contain carefully composed pages and finely-wrought, detailed pictures, painted with true-to-life colours. But sketches from memory – in words or pictures - can capture the essence of something, or perhaps what it means to you, far more truthfully than a carefully observed transcription at the time.
It’s up to you how sketchy or finished, how true-to-life or drawn-from-memory your nature journaling will be. Perhaps an eclectic mixture of many things and approaches, each reflecting your mood at the time?
But a journal should never be an onerous chore, one that you feel under pressure to complete every day, or that you feel needs to contain only perfect pictures or writing. That’s not a journal, that’s a rod for your back.
A journal should be a playful, helpful, adventurous, extension of yourself. A sandpit for exploring your responses to the world. Something a bit frowsy, a bit lop-sided, a bit ramshackle at times. But at other times it will resonate with a rare quality. It might be beauty, it might be insight, it might be as simple as two lines that perfectly capture the bird you glimpsed flying by. But you will catch your breath and be quietly amazed at what you’ve created. That sentence or story or picture will be yours: your unique response to the world.
Want to find out more? This is an excerpt from Paula’s book Make a Date with Nature: An Introduction to Nature Journaling. Download the free ebook from www.paperbarkwriter.com (scroll to the bottom of the homepage) and keep reading.
