A journaling journey

As nature journalers we are, I think, guardians of the natural history we record. It is our observations that make us part of the citizen science community and, hopefully, when we post to social media, we are able to make others aware of the natural world and the need to preserve it. With nature journaling there is no “one size fits all”. It doesn’t matter how someone else writes or draws; we all have our own individual styles, but our similarities are greater than our differences. We are all observers and recorders.

A love of nature was instilled into me early in life by my father and grandfather. Both were originally townsmen who became good countrymen. On long walks with their guidance, my sister and I learnt to identify plants, birds, and animals. In rural Kent we roamed free and, guided by the seasons, were able to collect flowers and wild fruits. We knew where to find the first primroses and banks of sweet violets, the best blackberries, and then sweet chestnuts in autumn. Looking back on this time, it was quite magical and a thing that many children of today miss out on as parents are now too scared to let them out on their own. When we moved down to Devon, we wandered the lanes and fields quite free and without fear, observing all the time.

I was, and am still, enchanted by the Ladybird books: What to look for in… with the marvelous Charles Tunnicliffe illustrations. These had a huge impact on me as well as British Wild Animals by David Stephens. My Grandfather bought me this book long before I could read.

It wasn’t until 2003 that I began keeping a nature journal. I started keeping lists of birds I had seen when I was out and about, but I always left room at the side as I had in my mind that I would add illustrations at some stage; however, this didn’t happen for another ten years. By this time the lists had progressed to making notes and including plants; photographs were added and so the pages became a journal. The initial book took several years to fill.

For a few years, I lived in North Vancouver and kept a journal of the nature sightings–mainly in my garden. It was fascinating to see different wildlife. I didn’t wander around so much, as some of the local wildlife was known to be on the dangerous side. My journal from that time is largely made up of photographs, but it is a journal nevertheless.

On returning to England, I settled on the Warwickshire-Worcestershire border and my journals have really become a big part of my life. It took a while before I settled on the style the journals take now, but they are constantly evolving, and I don’t have any fast and hard rules as to how I illustrate. I still make pages of notes, which I find are essential as they remind me of things I haven’t illustrated and natural events that have taken place. I have just started to keep a calendar of daily weather conditions and temperatures, which, I hope in future years, will show how the climate has changed. I continue to wander around the fields uninterrupted. A walk is never simply a walk; I always have my binoculars and camera with me so that I have images to draw from. I look forward to the seasons changing so I can record what is happening and refer back to the previous year to see if there are changes. Some things change little. I know from my records that about May 13 the swifts will be back–although one year they didn’t appear until May 29 due to storms over the Sahara. Other things are changing quite rapidly: Hazel Catkins appear much earlier. As a child Catkins were associated with March and Spring; my first sighting for this season was at the end of November–four months early!

Currently with the restrictions that COVID-19 has brought, it is not possible to go further afield and record different areas in my journal. So, I hope to make a more detailed study of places within walking distance. I thoroughly enjoy the recording process, I do it for my own pleasure and to leave a record for future generations of my family.

Nicola Allan is a retired Food and Textiles teacher. Her journal artwork is done mainly in watercolour and pencil. Work is either done from samples or photographs she has captured.

Nicola posts her journal pages regularly on Instagram.

Nature Journal South Africa: A community connected by journaling nature

Cati Vawda, Thembani Luthuli, Mbalenhle Zulu, Tanya Dayaram & Yousuf Vawda.

About photo: it is our, referred to in the text, first NJ Outing at Palmiet Nature Reserve as Durban NJ Club - People from Left-Right: Mbali Zulu, Cati Vawda, Thembani Luthuli and his 4 yo daughter Sesethu

The Nature Journal South Africa community first met as the Durban Nature Journal Club in March 2018, at the Palmiet Nature Reserve - a suburb of Durban, South Africa. Although there were four of us on that day, many others were vital to that first and later gatherings. This is the story of our journey to the present - currently a network of more than 60 individuals.

Beginning our journey

During 2010, Cati Vawda and Thembani Luthuli started to re-wild a suburban lawn in Durban. The space is part of the Indian Ocean Coastal Forest biome from which it had been carved. Together we learned which plants were indigenous to this local patch and nurtured them. We learned which plants were invasive or exotic, and removed them. We continue to remove plants harmful to the habitat and the ecosystems it supports. After a few years of removing the lawn and planting locally indigenous plants, we left the habitat to develop on its own. A sliver of wild. 

We began nature journaling in a process of shared learning and stewardship during the rehabilitation process. At first, we did not have a name for it. Then around 2014, we found the term - nature journaling – through John Muir (aka Jack) Laws’ online workshop videos.  The term described much of the way of we were connecting with nature: observing, recording, asking and seeking answers to questions, connecting learning with active stewardship. The idea took hold, and the term became a tool. This tool transformed our connections with nature and other people. 

How NJ changed our connection with nature

Thembani explains this change:

“We did not take nature serious before (nature journaling). Nature was just nature, nothing was noticed about living or non-living things. Working as a gardener, we (Cati and I) learned a lot about garden and plants. From plants and the garden, we started noticing things like insects and other things. That is where our nature journaling started.”                          

He explains how he sees nature since starting nature journaling: 

“Nature is good, beautiful, fun and exciting.”                       

 Cati’s starting point was different, but came to a similar place:

“Nature has always been an important part of my life. Growing up, I enjoyed the benefits of nature typical of my White middle-class privilege – nature as recreation - safely and easily available. I grew up in the wooded and stream-laced outreaches of suburban United States, beyond the reaches of a heavily polluted city. Here, nature was infused in every aspect of my life.

My relationship with nature changed as I moved to different parts of the world. Though I appreciated the beauty, I was unable to “read nature”. Nature was present, important, but undifferentiated, unnamed and unknown. I wanted to feel connected with what I saw, heard, smelled and sensed. It is only more recently that I am learning about the long natural and human history of Durban and South Africa which is now my home. Nature journaling has enabled me to connect with nature locally, first with Thembani and later with others including Mbali Zulu.”

Mbali Zulu and Cati are neighbours. They met through Mbali’s grandmother, Nomusa Zulu, with whom Mbali lives. Mbali explains how nature journaling deepened her connection with nature:

“I have always been into flowers. My father gave me a beautiful name which is Mbalenhle, and Mbalenhle means a beautiful flower in Zulu. I wanted to know why my father was intrigued by flowers. I was never interested in other parts of nature.

 I started nature journaling in 2016. I was interested in finding out more about plants, flowers and their different names and a whole lot more. This is when I met Aunty Cati, I asked her to help me find a specific plant. I knew she would be more than willing to help me, and she was indeed. Later on, we spoke about nature journaling. She asked if I would be interested and indeed, I was.

 Now my relationship with nature has grown so much, I notice every little thing when I’m walking to school or when I’m in a taxi going somewhere with my gogo (grandmother). I’m so aware of everything, and it feels so good when I just know more about nature, and I love it.”

Mbali Zulu sums up the benefits of nature journaling for us as individuals:

“For me it was finding a way to engage with nature and relaxing, breathing is something I learnt in nature journaling. Being able to see nature on another level was great. It was way bigger than just seeing trees, grass, flowers and all the different animals. It’s way greater than that, we just have to look for it.”

First Steps towards Community

About photo: Nature Journal Outing at Japanese Gardens, Durban, South Africa. People from front and clockwise to back and around: Tanya Dayaram, Cati Vawda, Bongani Chisale, Yousuf Vawda and Lisa Dayaram

When Mbali and Cati looked for that first plant together, Mbali’s enthusiasm and joy at learning about plants came through strongly, energising both of us. It built on the experiences of Thembani and Cati as nature journal buddies, and with members of the Palmiet Nature Reserve team: S’thembile Ngobese, Nolwazi Mbatha and Mbali Zuma. We all wanted to improve our nature journaling skills and to explore local nature-rich spaces together. 

The more we nature journaled, the more we experienced the need for a local nature journaling community.

Before 2018, nature journaling was not widely known in South Africa. We had not found a nature journaling group, or anyone willing to organise regular activities in South Africa, or even on the continent!  We wanted to support each other, to share progress and problems, to learn from others with a common interest in journaling, nature, wildlife, ecosystems, and environmental justice. 

Foundations of our community

We all want to respect nature and each other. Our code of conduct (The Nature Journalers’ Code of Conduct) is common ground to guide us in putting respect into practice. It is central to the foundations on which we are building our community.  

It includes the following:

WHO - Anyone and everyone

• All ages, genders, identities & descriptions.

• All languages, cultures & beliefs.

• All economic conditions & social circumstances.

• All abilities, types and levels of education and training, skills, knowledge & experiences.

• Connecting people in and across all communities from remote rural areas to townships to dense cities.

WHY 

• To support individuals and groups to develop and deepen their nature connections. 

• To redress environmental injustice by connecting us as people, and as people with place through the common tool of nature journaling.

• To encourage actions to protect and heal the environment.

HOW

• By slowing down and showing up for nature. 

• By learning about nature from nature, linking bush to books and research, and nature connection to actions through which we serve as eco-stewards.

• Through personal, professional and programmatic nature journaling.

• By paying it forward, and sharing with dignity not charity.

• By being respectful of different ways of knowing: scientific, cultural, linguistic, beliefs and traditions including learning about the histories of how we have created knowledge in diverse contexts.
   

In May 2019, we started a website with a focus on South African - and Southern Hemisphere - specific resources. The website also serves as an entry point to the many resources available globally. In the process we changed our name to Nature Journal South Africa. The blog provides a platform for members share their experiences. Marianne de Jager’s post beautifully describes how a visit to Qunu connected nature journaling with conservation. Lee Dickson’s post shares her reflections on lichen as a metaphor for our community.

We encourage nature-focused groups and programmes to integrate nature journaling into their activities. This includes promoting the revival of field notes by professionals, nature guides, scientists, artists, writers, musicians, language and culture activists. This hope has been realised with the local Durban bird club BirdLife Port Natal, the KwaZulu-Natal branch of Botanical Artists Association of Southern Africa and Wildlife ACT Community Conservation Programme.

Group around table: Community Conservation Team, Wildlife ACT, introducing nature journaling for conservation education programmes with young people.

Sign with name of specific location.

Reflections on our Journey

As a community of nature journalers, we reach out to all people, to embrace the world, and our places in these spaces. We prioritise nature journaling involving people historically and systematically excluded from and dispossessed of land, and facilitate access to nature-rich spaces.

The history of nature-rich, protected wild spaces, and membership in conservation and nature groups in South Africa is predominantly White and often middle-class. Indigenous, Black and Brown peoples were systematically and forcefully removed from these spaces, and then denied access to them. Indigenous, Black and Brown peoples’ present and historical knowledge of nature and their contributions to science is minimised or ignored. These are some of lasting effects of apartheid and colonialism which keep South Africans separated by race, language, economics and power.  

“The nature journaling community is important. 
It brings us together from different races, communities and backgrounds.” - Thembani

Skills Building session at Durban Botanic Gardens. People from front left and clockwise: Nolwazi Mbatha, Cati Vawda, Lee Dickson and Yousuf Vawda

Imagining a Different Future

Since the beginning of the 2020, our ways of living have changed fundamentally. For many, including NJSA members, outings are on hold. We stay in contact online and support each other to connect with nature through nature journaling, to find peace, reprieve and restoration. Looking back, we have experienced how nature journaling profoundly enriches our lives. During these uncertain and difficult times, it relaxes and calms us. It has fulfilled the promise of inner peace and quiet by meaningfully connecting us with and as part of nature. 

The values that guided us from the start, continue to be essential to our nature journaling practice, as individuals and as a community. Nature journaling helps our mental, physical and social health whatever our circumstances. During these difficult times, nature journaling continues to connect us as individuals and as a group. The NJSA community continues to connect through a chat group during lockdown. It gives us a relatively inexpensive way to communicate without internet access.

“I think that the (our) group is very successful because of the chat. I live a really long way away. And it is such an important link.” - Snooks Cole

We support each other by sharing stories, inspiration, encouragement and laughter. The #NJSA_lockdown_edition initiated by Tanya Dayaram, a member of NJSA,  displays the collective of shared pages and posts during the March to May period of lockdown in South Africa. To view it, see this blog post.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given us a global magnifying glass for the human costs and harm from our ongoing destruction of nature and wild spaces. It has brought into focus the inequities on which our “normal” was based, as well as the histories that created these realities. Some of us are able to shelter at home, to look onto or walk in gardens or along streets, masked and safely distanced. The majority of people in South Africa, and in many parts of the world, live in crowded areas, without adequate water, sanitation, food or telecommunications such as internet or mobile access.  Our challenge for the future is how we, as nature journalers, contribute to create diverse communities and a society that is compassionate, healthy, just, equitable and sustainable for both humans and other life forms, as well as for the many habitats - which make up this planet - our only home.

On behalf of Nature Journal South Africa

Cati Vawda

Thembani Luthuli

Mbalenhle Zulu

Tanya Dayaram

Yousuf Vawda

Please note that all photos were taken pre-COVID, before social distancing and masks were part of being safe and keeping others protected.

Nature journaling with the fungi

Mushrooms are my absolute favorite subjects for nature journaling, so I am excited to share some tips and techniques for observing and appreciating fungi with the use of a journal! 

Fungi are very diverse, surprising, mysterious, and often fleeting features of the natural landscape. Their non-determinate growth, rapid fruiting cycle, seasonality, and fussy habitat preferences would pique the curiosity of any naturalist. There is so much to learn about fungi, though I believe that they will always hold mysteries no matter how much we study them. 

Nature journalists love subjects that allow for deep inquiry. We like to ask questions not to find answers, but to find deeper questions. We relish in curiosity and wonder, mystery and confusion. A single collection of mushrooms can offer many hours, even days of fodder for a nature journalist.

Gathering

Mushrooms (along with shelves, jellies, puffballs, and cups) are the fruiting bodies of the organism, which is otherwise integrated into the substrate as a system of cells called mycelium. Like plucking an apple from the tree, picking the mushroom does not kill the fungus, so it is perfectly acceptable to gather mushrooms for closer examination. 

Lichens (or lichenized fungi) are a whole package of fungal fruiting bodies, mycelium and symbiotic algae and/or cyanobacteria. They are slow growing and should be collected sparingly, ideally from fallen branches. 

When gathering mushrooms, take note of your surrounding habitat, especially the tree species. Many mushrooms grow in association with tree roots, and are only found under certain kinds of trees. 

Take detailed notes of the substrate type. Are they growing from the ground, a log, wood chips, or a grassy lawn? What kind of ground, what type of wood? It is especially important to note hard wood vs. soft wood, living wood vs. dead wood, and other features may be important too, such as how decomposed it is. There are some fungi that grow specifically on strange substrates such as dung, cones, and even carpet! 

When you find mushrooms, notice the growth arrangements. Is it solitary, or in a cluster, are they scattered gregariously, or growing in fairy ring? Consider making a sketch of their growth habits, or a ‘landscapito’ of their preferred habitat type. 

When picking a mushroom, be sure to collect the whole thing. Avoid cutting the stipe (stalk) if you can, instead dig it out. There may be some interesting features in the stipe that are important, and you may even find that it is growing from something that is buried under the surface. If you can, collect a range of ages, from young buttons to ones that have fully matured. 

Immediately after you pick, take a close look at the coloration. Are there any faint tints of hues that might fade over time? Is there cottony powder, or cobwebby material? Is it bruising and if so what is the color of the bruise when it is fresh? Does the fungus have a unique odor or fragrance? 

Has the fungus released spores onto nearby surfaces, and if so what are their color? For shelf fungi, sometimes the spores form a film on the top of the shelf. If the conditions are right, you can sometimes see spores release from cup fungi by breathing into the cup, like you would do to fog a pair of glasses before cleaning them.  

Treat your specimens gently, or they will soon lose much of their beauty and appeal.  Clean off debris with a brush before stowing them. I like to put mine in a small pail, but Tupperware, baskets, or paper bags work as well. Avoid plastic bags if possible, they will suffocate and squish the mushrooms. Keep specimens cool, or in the fridge until you are ready to look at them, but ideally you would get started right away. 

Lichens are extremely hardy, desiccate perfectly, and can remain viable for long periods of time. Rehydrate them with a spray bottle before getting started and they will spring back to life! 

 
FIELD NOTES:

Habitat Type
Tree Species
Substrate
Growth/Distribution Patterns
Fragrance/Odor
Bruising 
Faint Colorations
Delicate Features

 
Examining the details

When mushroom season hits, I like to set up a workstation for my investigations. Cover a table in newspaper and hope that your family is participating, encouraging, or at least tolerant of your hobby. 

In addition to my journaling supplies, I also like to have field guides, a cutting surface, containers and trays, dissection kit or a knife, white and black paper for spore prints, ruler, hand lens/magnifier, and a compound microscope. 

I usually start by sketching the mushroom or if there are multiple, sketch the different growth phases. As nature journalists know, drawing focuses attention and causes us to notice more details. I usually end up taking my mushrooms apart, so I like to be sure to have my drawings at least outlined before I begin dissecting them. I like to orient my mushrooms so that I can see both the underside and the top of the cap in one view.

Even if you wont be coloring your page, take notes on the coloration of all parts, including gills, cap, and stipe. Colors may fade with age, so noting the color can be important for identification later on. Look for coloration and texture patterns, such as concentric rings on the cap or features on the cap margin.

Once I have my mushrooms sketched, I like to prepare a spore print. If you are interested in identifying your specimen, then learning the spore color is usually the first and most crucial step. 

To take a spore print, remove a mature cap, and place it on sturdy paper with the gills facing down. Place an overturned bowl on top, and if the cap is dry, put a bead of water on top. Avoid soggy caps, as they will just leave a water stain. Ideally, leave it to print overnight. Some caps drop billions of spores quickly, while others may never really give you a good print. Many mushrooms have white spores, so some people use half white/half black paper, but I find that white spores are easily visible even on white paper. I have had some success in preserving spore prints by carefully covering them with a strip of packaging tape, but drawing the spore print might make a longer lasting image. 

Most mushroom field guides have diagrams of various features and terminology for fungi. This is a great way to start to examine your mushrooms. See how many features you can identify about your specimens. 

If your mushroom has gills (as opposed to pores, teeth, cups, or some other spore bearing surface), then you will want to take a close look at them. Are they attached to the stipe/stalk, or can you easily remove the cap from the stipe without tearing the gills? Do the gills run down the stalk? Are they distant or crowded? Check young specimens for gill color. Once the mushroom releases spores, the gills might change color due to the spores. 

Notice additional features such as veil remnants (when the cap separates from the stipe, it may leave a skirt or other such clues), overall shape of the cap and stipe, measurements, and the texture of the flesh. To take a cross section, you can often just pull the mushroom apart in a perfect division. 

If you have a compound microscope, you can take a look at the spores. Spore shape can sometimes be necessary for identification, but I like to check them out and include them in my journal page regardless.  If you don't have a microscope, a hand lens or magnifying glass will allow you to see tiny features such as scales or fishnet patterns on the surface of your mushrooms.

EXAMINE:

Type of spore-bearing surface (gills, pores, cups, teeth, etc.)
Gill attachment, color and spacing (if present)
Cap shape
Stipe shape, texture, and fill (if present)
Spore print color and spore shape
Texturing, ornamentation, other unique features

The identification challenge

I actually started keeping a nature journal as part of a mycology course, because identifying mushrooms requires detailed habitat notes, dissections, microscopic examination, and deductive reasoning through the use of dichotomous keys. A nature journal is the perfect thing to keep track of this landslide of information.

Mushroom identification is both challenging and attainable. It requires practice and learned familiarity – things that nature journaling has prepared you for! Embrace the unknown. Do not be disappointed when you cannot identify the fungi that you find. It will happen. 

Also, do not expect your identified mushrooms to have common names. While common names for birds are highly reliable, common names for fungi are highly non-existent! Sometimes I feel like publishers simply make them up for the sake of standardized formatting. I suppose that the people who care enough to discern many of the types of fungi are the same that also enjoy learning the scientific names, and this particular field is where the reliability is very significant.  

Chances are high that the mushroom you found isn’t even in the field guide that you have, but there is still a huge value in trying to identify them anyway, as long as you aren’t attached to finding an answer. The process will cause you to scrutinize your mushroom and teach you what features you should be looking for. It will also help you hone in on the group of fungi that yours belongs to.  Looking at field guides will familiarize you with common fungi, so when you see them in the field, you will recall them from the book, and you will be able to identify them. 

When it comes to identification, I start with my tried and true copy of Mushrooms Demystified by David Aurora. This is a guide that uses dichotomous keys, which is the way to reliably identify fungi. It is a California based guide, but it covers United States and Canada. Even though I’m in Alaska, and many of the names have undergone revisions, I use it as my primary guide and have a large number of other smaller field guides that serve as cross-references, especially when it comes to photos. 

If you want to get serious about identifying fungi, you must learn to use keys. One way to practice as a beginner is to find an obvious species that you know, and then use the key from the beginning until you reach the known outcome. Keys are challenging to learn, and with all challenges come some frustration, but once you get the hang of it, it’s like detective work as you rule out all the things that your mushroom is NOT until hopefully you land on what it IS. Mushrooms keys are especially bizarre, as your options might fluctuate between the microscopic features of a spore, to “sort of smells like red-hots and dirty socks”. The combination of objectively technical traits and whimsical impressions makes mushroom identification pretty entertaining.

If you feel like you’ve found it, double-check the descriptions and cross-reference with other guides. Online searches are sometimes helpful with confirmations, but be wary! Information and photos of the more obscure fungi are very scant and unreliable through general search methods.

I have a few great guides that are specific to my region and have many of our most common species. I suggest finding the most regionally specific guides that you can. 

It is the vast diversity and short windows of opportunities that have kept me intrigued and engaged with fungi identification for over 10 years. Just do your best, and embrace the challenge!

 
Foraging for edibles

I absolutely love foraging for wild edible mushrooms. Similar to keeping a nature journal, wild foraging will cause you to see your natural environment with new eyes. Soon you will be picking up on habitat clues that you had never considered before, such as angle and aspect of slope, age and species of tree stands, understory composition and humidity, and a whole host of other factors that will lend to a holistic and intuitive understanding of the ecosystems that fungi inhabit. 

Mushroom hunting nurtures a 6th sense. No other activity has me scrambling under logs and jumping over fences quite like mushroom hunting. I find myself in the most unlikely places simply because I have a hunch that I might find a delectable edible in the vicinity. They don’t necessarily grow where it’s easy to search for them!

 I am an avid mushroom forager, but my appreciation and interest in mycology goes much deeper than that. “Can I eat this?” is by far the most common question I hear from people when it comes to mushrooms, and I find it a bit irksome. The answer theoretically could range from “yes it’s delicious” to “no, it will kill you” but probably falls under the spectrum of “if you like to eat cardboard” to “if you like to eat slimy mush”.  Many mushrooms are technically edible, just like many plants are technically edible, but most of us don’t go around munching on the leaves and twigs in our yards.

Personal peeves aside, if mushroom edibility is the thing that inspires people to start learning about and appreciating mushrooms, then I highly encourage wild foraging! Despite popular warnings, you do not have to be an expert at identification to start wild foraging. The secret is to learn what wild edibles grow in your area, learn how to distinguish these from others or look-alikes, and simply target only those species. 

Let the habitat guide you, as you learn what conditions favor your selected mushrooms. My friends and I call it “dec-hab”, short for decent habitat. This is the preferred approach to wild harvesting anyway, considering that there are so many species of fungi, and that they can be so difficult to identify with certainty. Better to seek the ones you know to be good, than to ask if the ones that you found are. 

 If you do find a nice basket of edibles, proceed with caution! Ask for a confirmation on your identification (pretty easy with all the online groups and forums these days). Eat only a small amount at first. Many people have allergic reactions or gastrointestinal intolerances to mushrooms, so ‘edibility’ can be different from person to person. Also, anyone can get sick from over-indulgence (I certainly have). I always thoroughly cook my mushrooms. 

Wherever your fungal fancies may take you, I hope that these curious, weird and gorgeous growths will enhance your nature journaling and inquiry experience time and time again. Happy hunting! 

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My journey with nature journaling and the tips I've learned

We, nature journalers, all have something in common: our love from nature! And mine came from my parents. They both love nature and introduced me to it from a very young age. In addition to that, until the age of 7 we lived in a house in the middle of the woods, so I really did have a lot of contact with nature from a young age.

Both my mother and my father kept nature journals (my father more about biology and my mother about geology) which inspired me to start my own for the first time (when I was 7 was years old). But that didn't really work out.

My father’s nature journal

My mother’s nature journal

When I was 13, I tried it again and that time it went a lot better! But in the end it also didn't work out because I had one main problem: I was trying to make a perfectly beautiful nature journal that looked like a book. I would search for all the information that went into my journal, draw perfectly, etc. And even though it looked beautiful and I loved it, it led to a very small number of entries and to a huge fear of writing and drawing on the pages.

My first nature journal - age 7

My second nature journal - age 13

Now we get to the nature journal I have currently (at the age of 17). I simply love how it is turning out and the way it is working! It took a lot of trial and error (as you can see on this post) but I think I finally found my style and the way it works best for me. I have been doing a lot of entries on it and I'm really proud of the way it is turning out.

My current nature journal - age 17

These are the main things that I learned from my expirience and use in my current nature journal that I think make a huge difference (and also some personal tips for making a nature journal):

• Using a stitch bound sketchbook will help you fight the urge to rip out pages that turn out less good or pretty. It also allows you to draw something across a spread of two pages, which can be very useful.

• Using a sketchbook that isn't too expensive will help you lose the fear of writing and painting.

• Using a sketchbook with mixed-media paper allows to use basically any kind of writing and drawing medium (watercolor, colored pencils, ink, gouache, graphite, even collages) and even to mixed them together (I've recently found out that watercolour with colored pencils is the way it works the best for me).

• If you are interested in drawing animals, plants and fungi… buying a folding magnifying glass is going to be really, really useful because of how practical it is.

• If you are using watercolors, using a kneadable eraser will minimize the the amount of paper worn out, allowing the paper to take more watercolor.

• Drawing in the field is a completely different and unique experience! If you can journal in the field (sometimes you can't do it, and that's completely okay), do it. I promise you will love it.

• It is a nature jounal, not a nature book! So don't try to make it look like a book… experiment, sketch, have fun!

• In case you are drawing something that moves, you can draw a simple diagram showing the movement. I find this really beautiful and useful and usualy do them in black and white to keep it simple.

• And my biggest tip and the thing I take as the most important in my journal: write and draw what you see and what you discover! Write your theories and thoughts about the subject you are journaling about. You can always research after it and write down what you find in that research, but always keep registered your theories as well! And if you find out your theory was wrong, simply write a note on the side saying something like “my theory was wrong, what is right is…. “ and fill it with the information you know is right. That is the beauty of a nature journal, seeing one’s thoughts, ideas, theories and points of view of the world (and more specificly the nature) we live in.

And this is my post for International Nature Journaling Week, I hope you liked it, it was useful and that you will participate in this amazing week!

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Find more of Afonso’s nature journal pages on Instagram @obscurusnix.

Digital nature journaling with Procreate

I first started nature journaling a few years ago and I’ve experimented with several different types of paint along the way. I started with Acrylic. This paint was just not opaque enough for me. Next I tried Casein which I really like, but it has a very limited range of colors available. I finally settled on gouache and acrylic gouache. I’ve done most of my nature journal pages with these 2 over the last couple of years. But lately I’ve been doing pages with the Procreate app on my iPad. It’s a fun way work. The technique I’m using is a variation of my gouache technique with a few wonderful differences. One difference is the ability to work in layers. This allows you to make all types of adjustments and techniques that just aren’t options in the traditional world. Here are a few pages created with Procreate. With the 30 second time lapse, you can get an idea of the process.

Procreate Time-lapse - Justicia
This is a Procreate Time-lapse of my garden journal page for 4-14-20.

Procreate Time-lapse -  Bird of Paradise
This is a Procreate Time-lapse of my garden journal page for 5-2-20.

Sonoran Desert Spring
This is a Procreate Time-lapse of my nature journal page for 5-21-20. 
Ironwood Trees are blooming!

For a more in depth information on Gouache, Acrylic Gouache and Procreate, check out Bill’s Skillshare and YouTube channels.

Nature Finds in my journal

I’m a scientist, and I love to draw. I’ve always been fascinated by nature, since I was very small, and I learned to love drawing when I wasn’t that much bigger. I studied Zoology at University. But I tend to call myself a ‘Biologist’ rather than a Zoologist now, because I spend a lot of time working with plants. When I was a student, I quickly worked out the best way to learn anatomy was to draw it, and I’ve been doing that ever since. I’ve always been more of a ‘lab person’ than a ‘field person’ – I like to collect things, bring them home, look at them under magnifiers, pull them apart, learn all about them and then draw them. My journals are mostly like lab books rather than field notes, and my subjects could all be described as found objects, found in nature. 

I started a perpetual journal at the beginning of this year. Actually, it was supposed to start at the beginning of 2019, but I made a mistake. I bought a big, fancy, hardback leather-bound journal and when I came to start drawing in it, I had an attack of ‘blank page fear’ and didn’t want to spoil the journal. So, I put it away to wait for some better reason to use it in the future, and carried on journaling in scruffy little concertina sketchbooks I make with my favourite drawing paper (Lambeth Drawing Cartridge) and a couple of bits of cardboard from my paper recycling bin. Thinking about it, all my journals are recording something specific – a period in time, a particular plant, comparing plant features, planning a project, recording a trip… Although I like the idea of the perpetual journal – mark out the pages with dates through the year, and then add something on the  pages every year, no pressure to draw on every page every year, and over a number of years everything comes together like magic – I didn’t really know quite what it was that I wanted to record in this big smart book. During the year, it came to me; I would use this book to record my observations of nature – plants and animals, close to home, in and around our garden, the river, woodland and open moors that are within walking and running distance. Bringing my finds home to investigate, but everything collected on foot. 

Suddenly that big book was no longer daunting, and I didn’t need to worry about carrying it around outside – it’s a studio project. I go out, I find stuff that interests me, I look at it, and research it, and then I draw and write about it. As things turned out, I’ve spent a lot more time at home than I expected this year, holidays and trips all cancelled; I wander along my stretch of river most evenings, looking closely at plants, watching them change by the day or week. Always on the lookout for what I might take home with me from my runs – a bunch of Equisetum or Typha, and I’m keeping a close eye on that dead hare under a hedge until the skeleton is ready to come home - that will be such an amazing thing to investigate and draw. My work in this journal is often detailed, with dissections. It’s a place where I’m learning unexpected things about everyday plants… that the yellow bits in the middle of a forget-me-not are small scales in the mouth of the corolla, called fornices, that are typical in many plants in the Boraginaceae family; that those battered looking pussy willow catkins aren’t just wet, they are female flowers and they are on a separate tree because this is a dioecious plant; that the leaves on horsetails aren’t leaves at all, they are branches and the leaves are funny little scales – the only bit of the plant that doesn’t photosynthesise. 

Another little project I’ve started in these strange times, purely by chance, is my pebble journal. On a very ordinary beach walk in a very ordinary day at the beginning of March this year with my husband, we picked up a little bagful of pretty pebbles, not for any reason other than they were pretty. Then lockdown happened. I kept looking at these pebbles, in a little pile on the table, and they reminded me of the sea. So, I started drawing them, in a little journal of their own that I made with a light grey textured paper. One at a time, front and back, like a formal leaf study. Superficially, they look pretty, but on close inspection they are fascinating, mesmerising almost. I can get lost in their detail and trying to recreate their colours and textures with my pencils. This is such an engaging and mindful process, where all I want to do is savour the experience of drawing these pretty little things that remind me of that day on the shore…I can almost smell the sea. 

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Find more of Alison’s work on her website alisoncutts.com, view her folio here, and on join here on Instagram @dr.alison_botanical_artist.

Nature sketching as drawing practice

I was first introduced to green sketching by Ali Foxon - on one of her Boggy Doodle walks at Tegg’s nose in Macclesfield (UK). Although boggy that day, it was not.  It was an absolutely scorching day, week in fact; the ground was bone dry, the grass straw coloured, the sun was flattening every shadow, the hills looked exhausted in the haze and it was still the morning.  As we set out on the parched dusty path together, Ali explained with enthusiasm her vision to help people reconnect to nature through simple observation of natural details and sketching for pleasure. The beauty of doodling is that you do not have to be good, or draw something perfectly, far from it. Just observe closely, sketch and enjoy the process: you will be amazed at how intricate and varied nature is.

 Every now and again we stopped in the shade to draw hills, tree shadows, oak leaves, cow parsley, some simple grass with stunningly symmetrical features or delicate serrated leaves... It was a revelation to find everything so interesting.  It suddenly dawned on me that all that time looking to improve my drawing I had seen but not actually looked properly. I was always searching for the perfect view – you know, “it’s probably a bit further on”…-  as nothing seemed worth drawing “here”. But I had been wrong all along– quite the contrary, everything is worth drawing and paying close attention to. Suddenly there was everything to re-view, re-discover and properly appreciate. I love going for long walks, and being outside in general, I do enjoy nature immensely already, so I was immediately converted. That was 2018, sketchbook and pen have never left my pocket since.

I decided immediately to use nature sketching to advance my secret plan to become a better artist so chose to go further than just doodling, and work on improving my drawing and painting skills.  Daily practice is essential and the session with Ali taught me that I needed to become a more diligent observer, so use different aspects of nature sketching to practice different areas of drawing.  Starting with developing an eye for interesting composition using a view finder across a broad sweeping landscape and revealing hidden possibilities – using only line drawings you can practice focal points, shadows and tones.  You can try squares of different sizes or thin strips, looking for dynamic layouts. You see contrast better too that way.  I have recently purchased a couple of black ink brush pens to push myself to become bolder with shadows and strong contrasts - suddenly details in lighter areas jump out of the page and the dramatic angles of branches give new character to your drawing.

Flowers, leaves and plants help me develop an eye for details – I try to discipline myself to watch carefully first, looking for shapes and how they relate to each other.  This also helps with relative size and angles, and that is when you realise how intricate nature can be - and you can go further and further with the level of detail you want to achieve and challenge yourself.

Although outdoor direct observation is best, you can keep going and draw nature at home too. I love picking up treasures on my walks for close study later: shells, pebbles, seed heads, branches and lichens - the latter are mesmerising, so intricate, structured and colourful, complete worlds in miniature - but you need a magnifying glass or to take a closeup photo to truly appreciate it all.  Lichens also definitely deserve to be drawn in colour! 

Finally, I want to learn to draw light. When sketching outdoors I take a few watercolour pens to do a wash, but use paints to render sun, reflections and weather better. I love the dappled effects of the sun through tree canopies on the ground and Autumn leaves against dark skies. I do take a lot of photos of dramatic clouds or twinkling sunlight on water. These are fleeting and temporary effects I really want to get right as they set the mood, record a feeling or a season. On a walk you can slow down and appreciate time passing and enjoy change; from this summer I will try and make a habit of noting down these observations together with my sketches so that impressions, scents and sounds are also recorded. In fact I have been make a eagerly waiting for snow all winter - ready to record and re-discover its soft shapes in subtle colours and quiet stillness but wasn’t very lucky in that respect in my area this year!

As you can see, I have been bitten by the nature sketching bug. My kind of nature journaling is also an art journey, it provides me with a kaleidoscope of subjects and ideas I will brave all weather for. With so many opportunities literally right on our doorsteps, I hope that you too will realise that everything is worth drawing – just keep a pen and a small notebook in your pocket.

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You can find more of Laurence’s work on Instagram @laurencemenhinick.

Nature journaling in conjunction with photographic reference

I’ve always utilized life and field drawing for my wildlife art to varying degrees throughout the years, and always in conjunction with photographic reference. Photography has long been a faithful tool in my creative process, but when combined with the strong observations gleaned from nature journaling, makes for a masterful toolkit. Entering into 2020 I wanted to re-establish my love for this method with a goal in mind: to more consistently incorporate wildlife nature journaling into my studio practice. 

Journaling allows me to record observations quickly, with something as simple as a color swatch or a word, or with a more complex sketch or detailed rendering. Upon returning to my studio, these observations help to inform the emotional feel of my final artwork, the animal’s posture, its environmental composition and lighting, and so much more.

Some observations to record & bring back to the studio

These are some of the prompts I keep in mind when observing animals live:

Behavioral Observations:

• Movement:

  - Does it hop? Slither? Does it swoop down and up? Does it dart back and forth? 
  - Does it bob its head? Shake any feathers?

• Interactions: 

  - How do they interact with other species? Are they territorial? 
  - How do they interact with their young?
  - How do the different genders interact?

• Gestures & Posture

Smells of the Habitat

• Flowers/Grass?

• Wet/damp? like the smell before a rain or after?

• Soil/Earthy?

• Sweet and Fresh, or Foul and Acrid? 

Date, Time of Day & Season

• Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

Sounds

• Animal’s Sound: Chirping? Chittering? Whistling? Screeching?

• Environmental Sounds: Windy? City noise? Other animals? Water noise?

Colors & Patterns

• Create swatches of the main colors observed: Highlights, shadows, reflective light/color, and Identifying colors 

• Record any distinctive markings or patterns as swatches

Weather

• Humidity: Damp / Sticky / Dry

• Rain: Misty / Light / Heavy / Thunder

• Wind: None / Light Breeze / Windy / Heavy Winds

• Temperature: Hot / Warm / Cool / Cold / Freezing

My Emotions/Feelings 

• Does it feel peaceful, quiet and serene?

• Does it feel chaotic, aggressive, or rough? 

What to do when you can’t get outside or the species is not in your hemisphere?

I have turned to nature and wildlife documentaries as source material when I am unable to access the species in real life. In a recent conversation with a friend, they recommended webcams as an option. This is a fabulous way to observe an animal’s day-to-day life. Many bird cams are set up for conservation research and can be viewed online. Trail cams and live cams at zoos and aquariums are another fabulous resource.

At the end of the day remember journaling isn’t about perfection, it’s about observation and learning. 
Go out and enjoy the sounds, smells and sights. Soak up as much as you can and enjoy the opportunity to connect with nature 😊

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Find more of Cat’s work on her website www.WildlifeByArtCat.com, as well as on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Art Cat has generously given us some free wildlife downloads which you can find on the Animals page.

Curious nature!

I have always loved nature. My name is Julia Landford and I was born and brought up in the beautiful country of Papua New Guinea – where I lived for around 20 years of my life, including with my husband Alan and three children. Some of my earliest memories as a child in PNG were looking at the incredible patterns on caladium leaves, watching brilliant tropical butterflies, raising colourful caterpillars and exploring trees, creeks, grasslands and gardens. The rest of my life has been in Australia – interspersed with fascinating experiences across many parts of the world. This has included several years with my international development career and diplomatic role in Bangkok, through to working in New York with the United Nations. 

I was also the Founding President of Wildlife and Botanical Artists (WABA) which provided a national network of artists interested in this genre for 20 years up to 2017. This was an opportunity to bring together artists, scientists and environmentalists, host many unique art exhibitions and workshops for artists, and led to the first national Symposium ‘Discover Wildlife – Art and Science’.  

In 2017 I decided to focus on the importance of nature in our lives by establishing a natural history art school called ‘NatureArt Lab’ based in Canberra, the capital city of Australia. NatureArt Lab has enabled me to share my joy of art and nature with hundreds of people, many of whom have not had the opportunity to stop and look a little more closely at the beauty of our natural world. Our programs cater for adults and children, and include nature art classes and tours to some of the most biodiverse places on the planet.

One of the main reasons I see this as important is that the more people can connect with nature, the more likely they are to become ambassadors for nature - and the more likely they are to protect and ensure its survival in a rapidly changing world with major biodiversity challenges. I received the ‘Environmental Educator of the Year’ Award last year from the Australian Association of Environmental Education (ACT) in recognition of my work with art and nature.

I’ve always loved drawing and observation, and over the years I have ventured into learning about almost every artistic medium to recreate my fascination with the natural world. My passion for nature and art has resulted in artworks of insects and frogs to birds and mammals, as well as works of a range of botanical beauties.

Nature journaling is one of my favourite things. I love being able to spend time walking in nature, and I love being able to occasionally stop and take a closer look at the intricacies of fungi, the colour of leaves and grasses, the incredible lighting of late afternoon or early morning sunlight. I have a small field kit with a selection of pens, pencils and a tiny little watercolour set – as well as my nature journal. These simple tools enable me to document anything from the little coral fungi which has emerged from the forest floor, to the beauty of the coastal Westringia plants growing on the cliffsides of the Pacific Ocean. I have documented the small beetles found foraging in our garden, and the pasture moths emerging in their hundreds in nearby fields. 

Teaching nature journaling is also one of my most satisfying roles at our natural history art school. I have seen the transformative changes when people pick up a pencil or pen to draw what they see in nature, suddenly realizing it really is not that difficult. The joy of being able to explore the colours, patterns and shapes of nature whilst creating space for curiosity is so rewarding.   

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You can find out more about Julia’s work at NatureArt Lab on her website natureartlab.com.au and on Instagram @natureart_lab.

The joy of curiosity in my nature journal

My name is Fiona and I am 16 years old. I am not necessarily what you might call your “typical teenager.” I do not watch TV and I rarely use a computer, except under these recent circumstances where I have to use one for school. I just recently got a cell phone, much to my chagrin, and I only use it to text friends concerning homework and such. (Also, since I have had to shelter in place, I have been using it to stay in touch with friends.) Otherwise, I leave my phone at home and do not take it with me anywhere. I have no social media accounts, and don’t want any. Instead of getting lost in the overwhelming world of social media, I prefer to get lost in the overwhelmingly amazing world of nature.

One of my great loves besides nature is art. I have loved drawing ever since I could hold a pencil. I also really love nature, and it has always been a big part of my life. Since I was 3 years old, I have attended Waldorf schools, where art and nature are an integral part of the curriculum. My family is blessed to live in Northern California near a river canyon, with hundreds of miles of open space and wild trails right out our back door. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by nature, and I felt welcomed into it from a very early age.

On the day before I turned 13, I had the good fortune of a chance meeting with artist, naturalist, author, and educator John Muir Laws (aka “Jack”), and that moment completely changed my life. Through Jack, I learned about nature journaling, which is this amazing combination of two things I love that go great together: art and nature. Jack and I became friends and sketching buddies, and we have had lots of fun nature experiences together. I love exploring nature with Jack because he is so joyful about the world and that joy is contagious. He is excited about everything, like a child who is seeing it for the first time and is amazed by it. It is so fun to go out and journal with him.

Now, nearly 4 years and 2000 nature journal pages later, nature journaling is an integral part of my life. Not only has it changed the way I look at nature, it has also changed the way I look at life in general.

Nature journaling helps me connect more deeply with nature. Through the pages of my journal, I can explore and express the wonders and the beauties of nature. It is incredibly important to stay connected to nature because being in nature makes me feel so calm and so happy—I feel so lucky to be alive when I am out in the world, looking at all the intricacies and mysteries that nature has to offer.

Nature is also such an incredible resource—there is so much to wonder about, so much to see, and so much to stand in awe of. There is so much beauty in the world if we stop to look…if we stop and smell the flowers, and draw the flowers while we are at it. 

Not only is nature amazing, it is also our life source. All of these phenomena, all of these mysteries make up this beautiful web that is allowing us to live, and understating that is a really key part of being alive on this planet. 

Perhaps the biggest lesson nature journaling has taught me is the joy of curiosity. When I am nature journaling, I slow down enough to wonder, to realize all the things I don’t know, and this ignites my curiosity. Research shows that when we are curious, our minds are primed to learn and remember more. I love to ask questions in my journal, and the more detail I see and document, the more questions I have. As David Allen Sibley wrote in his foreword to Jack’s book, The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds: “When I am drawing, I look more closely and ask and answer questions that I would not have considered if I was just watching.”

Questions are intrinsically good in themselves because they pull me into a state of heightened awareness and focus. Research shows that curiosity is one of the precursors of moving into a flow state. (A flow state is what many people call their “happy place,” where you get so engrossed in what you are doing that you lose track of time.) This flow state triggers a mix of potent neurotransmitters in my brain, while at the same time, reducing blood flow to the part of my brain that houses my inner critic, helping to mute it. (Muting the self-critic is especially important to me because my self-critic is a huge negative part of my life.) Curiosity is a dopamine-mediated response, meaning that my brain gets a squirt of dopamine when I get curious, so curiosity literally feels good.

Asking questions is fun, and because I don’t worry about the answers at the moment, it’s very freeing. If I had to answer all the questions I ask in my journal, it would paralyze me. I’m not saying that answers are not important—just that the act of asking questions helps me go deeper into the mystery. I start with basic questions, and then those questions lead to more interesting questions. In fact, the best questions often come after many simple ones. This is what I call question chains—a series of questions, starting with simple ones and getting more complex, each new question building on the last. In fact, often without even being answered, these questions will take me into a thought process and investigation that I would not reach otherwise. If I do decide to go look something up, I don’t just stop when I get the answer to the question, I let it spark another question.

Sadly, it seems that many people in our society are afraid of questions. When we were small children, we asked lots of questions. But at some point, we stopped. In fact, a lot of people, teenagers and adults alike, are afraid to ask questions. Why? Perhaps we don’t want to look stupid, or we don’t want anyone to know that we don’t know all the answers. I have found that building the skill of curiosity in the safety of my own nature journal has given me the opportunity to practice asking lots of questions concerning other topics, and the courage to do it more and more. Getting curious in my nature journal has enabled and empowered me to look beyond my journal and question everything around me.

I think, now, in this moment in our world’s history, asking questions is vital to our survival. If we, as humans, accept and embrace questions, we will be able to see where we are heading as a planet and take steps to change that path. One of the best questions I have ever heard came from a Mary Oliver poem, “The Summer Day”: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I now know my answer: I want to spend my life observing, wondering about, and standing in awe of nature and all it has to offer. But the awe is only the beginning: I want to spend my life taking care of nature and fighting to protect it. In order to do this, I will be carefully observing the natural world, writing and drawing a lot in my journal, and asking lots of questions.

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Explore Fiona’s website at www.fionasongbird.com/naturalist.html.

Small weather sketches - A great way to start a new sketchbook

One ongoing project I started over a year ago is to document the sky above me on a regular basis. I love gazing into the sky, and I like learning about different weather phenomena by quickly sketching them in graphite and watercolor.

The way I do these sketches is to reserve the first page of my sketchbook for small weather sketches. These are intended to be small thumbnails drawings, just impressions on how the weather looked like on that particular day. This technique has become my favorite way to start a new sketchbook, and I'll tell you why in a second. I keep these sketches really simple: I usually make a few notes (date, time, what's happening). Making a small weather study is a great way to warm up, and I often start my sketching sessions with weather sketches.

This way I fill up the first page bit by bit and I document the weather and sky that I saw when I was using the sketchbook. When I run out of place on the first page, I continue on the last page. This practice gives a wonderful insight on how the sky looks in different seasons, and what colors and weather conditions dominated that time span. Winter light is different from summer light, as you can learn from this kind of perpetual journaling. Weather sketches also train my ability to paint different kind of skies and clouds, which is always helpful, and gives me an excuse to nerd out about clouds.

But the most valuable aspect these small sketches at the beginning of my sketchbook have, is that they take away the fear of having to make a mark into a new sketchbook. I used to be afraid of my sketchbook, especially a new one, because the empty pages felt intimidating, and I didn't want to screw them up. I'm pretty sure this is a feeling every artist has known at one point or another, so there are many great ways to trick yourself around that fear. Nature journaling has definitely helped to liberate me from the perfectionist approach of making great art all the time, but I still felt a bit intimidated at the beginning of a new, pristine sketchbook - so full of potential, but also potentially ruined by my first brushstroke. Since I've decided that the first page of my nature journal will always be reserved for small weather sketches, this fear has vanished. I don't even think about what kind of marks I want to make in a new sketchbook, I simply start and document the sky.

Next time you start a new sketchbook, try out this technique. Obviously you don't have to fill the page with weather sketches, but I find them easy to start with. They work with the simplest of tools - graphite, ink, or watercolor, and the process warms up your drawing hand and familiarizes you with your tools. I typically spend around 5 minutes on one sketch.

Weather sketches are usually not very technically challenging - you lay down a blue or grey sky, and then react to whatever cloud pattern or weather phenomenon you can see. Clouds are very forgiving subjects, they don't have to follow exact forms, and with a few simple tricks you can learn how to paint them pretty easily.

As a small demo, I'd like to show you how to paint two different types of clouds in watercolor. This video will be added to the SKIES page on 6th June 2020.

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Julia shares regular updates of her adventures in nature and lots of sketching tips on her blog - juliabausenhardt.com/blog and Youtube channel, and she teaches nature sketching classes online which you can find here.

Why even nature journal?

Hi, I’m Dallas. I’m a homeschooling mom and art teacher. I love learning along with my flock of three under the age of 8. We go on nature rambles about 2-3 times a week together and it’s something I hope we never stop doing. Omaha, Nebraska in the Midwest of the United States is my home. It boasts a long winter, Sandhill cranes, prairie plant life, and big open skies. I started nature journaling thanks to Charlotte Mason, my favorite educational philosopher. I actually had a really hard time starting because I had no experience doing any plein air sketching through art school. But now that I’ve had two years of practice, you could never convince me to stop!

Why do I keep a nature journal? 

The natural world reveals something bigger than us. We are finite. God is infinite and his creation shows us thousands of wonders if we are watching.

When I take my journal out, I see evidence of time passing. I see evidence that this, too, shall pass. We are living in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic as I write this. We can pause to watch the seasons predictably change, as each day seems to be so perpetually the same as the one before as our normal rhythm of life has been knocked off its axis.

As a mom of three children, I’m usually swamped with studying, school planning, and managing my online business. Needless to say, I often need to be made to slow down. I get lost in the mundane and the hustle somehow at the same time. I stress about the future and how I’m teaching these precious little ones. Sitting to observe and sketch helps me slow down and use the non-verbal part of my brain for a nice break. It helps my children see that mom stops to gaze at the heavens that declare His glory and watch the small sparrow that our Creator cares for. This reminds me that every day we are cared for by Him, too.

I need new ideas. Often, I find a new pattern in nature I’ve never noticed before. Or, one of my children makes an observation I wasn’t aware of. I try to write these instances down to capture them in records for later. Nature journaling can be a family heirloom item to pass on to the next generations in a world where going paperless is seen as a moral imperative. Each outing has its own story and I never regret writing about our excursions.

Using my mind, hands, and tools for this activity helps me remember things! I want a sharp mind and a ready intellect for whatever challenge I’m met with next. Keeping this journal helps me exercise these gifts and it keeps me mentally fresh!

How do I do it?

I keep a minimal amount of supplies. I try to do everything very simply so that there’s a higher likelihood of me getting out and painting. Watch this video about what I keep in my pack.

I draw both by observation and later from memory. Each skill is important! Drawing from memory later helps me figure out what I didn’t see or forgot to look for. Observing and sketching in real-time is very relaxing and has its own hurdles (like moving creatures, precipitation or wind, and changing light.) I like a good challenge.

We’re usually studying something specific about nature in our lessons and due to each season, or otherwise I sketch by what is beautiful to me on that walk. I always note anything out of the ordinary. I even record what I smell, how the temperature and wind feels, what the weather is doing, descriptions of noises and calls I hear, the kids’ attitudes before and after, my thoughts and emotions, too. It really is a lot like a diary and each one I fill up is more dear to me than the last.

Want to join me?

Bethan Burton (Journaling With Nature) has curated such wonderful resources here at Nature Journaling Week. She even has help for the novice and teachers! So, please look around and be inspired by how you can start the practice, too.

As an art and nature-lover myself, I also offer you my expertise in drawing from life over on my website, Bestowing The Brush, where I support homeschool families who want to learn this skill. I studied drawing, printmaking and sculpture at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in the Fine Arts program. I’ve also recently studied from the 19th century watercoloring tradition (à la John Ruskin, W.G. Collingwood, and others). Teaching online art studies now for two years has been so refreshing for me. I love empowering parents and students around the globe learning these skills!

Keeping a nature notebook can be so much more life-giving if the student has been given eyes to see and hands ready for the task. If you want to check out some of the supplies I use, here’s a list. You can visit the Etsy store where I purchased my notebook here. If you’re ready to learn how to draw and need a video course to get started, check out my new one called Brush, Chalk, & Charcoal: Foundations in Drawing. I also have videos on my YouTube channel  for beginners of every age. Wouldn’t you like to embark on something so exhilarating as capturing your world on paper? I can’t wait to see you soon!

Why I started a nature journal club - everything happens for a reason

“These are unfinished! You should make them into complete works or illustrations. As they are, they should be thrown in a trash can!”  This is what an editor said scornfully when looking at my sketchbooks. One of the pioneers of animal illustration in Japan suggested that I should show this editor my sketchbooks because he said my sketches reminded him of one of his favorite illustrators, Gunnar Brusewitz. However, that incident gave me a negative image of my field sketches. I was 26 at that time. I learned field sketching when I traveled to Canada and America in 1993 and 1994. I was influenced by Robert Bateman, John Busby, Gunnar Brusewitz, Peter Partington, Francis Lee Jaques, Lars Jonsson, and Toyomi Tanaka. They are stunning field artists, I do not think their sketches are unfinished.

As a nature artist/illustrator, field sketching is one of several important steps in making a piece of art or illustration. I prefer sketching in a field to painting in a studio, so I kept sketching just for study. In 2007 I found a book titled, "Keeping A Nature Journal" by Clare Walker Leslie. As English is not my native language, it took a lot of time to read the whole book. but her journals are filled with her colored sketches and handwriting. I fell in love with her style. Also, I felt this book has an oriental view on nature, so what she said in this book really resonated with me.

I started Nature Journaling, and it made my style on sketching changed into one including much information more than just sketching something beautiful or with a good composition from an artist’s point of view. I found it to be a different approach to appreciating nature. I had been keeping Nature Journals for my own joy for years, but sometimes I lost my motivation to continue it. I could say it was because I had been doing it alone, but I actually love to be alone, and besides I never had the idea to share it with anybody. I did not know anyone interested in field sketching, at least among my close artist friends. 

In 2013, I gave birth to my daughter. I became a mother, not so young, then became a single mom. I considered what I could give as a life-gift to her, as we would have less time to spend together than ordinary families. What came to my mind was, "self- confidence" and "creativity" which were what I wanted when I was young, especially self-confidence. I was convinced that Nature Journaling could be the best tool for it. 

While she was a baby, I was too busy to Nature Journal, but I preferred to record my baby growing up every day in my diaries. Growing a little human attracted me more than looking at nature itself.

In 2017, when my little girl turned 4, I restarted my Nature Journal. Yes! I had been waiting for the right time to do this! I had been dreaming about Nature Journaling with my child just like Clare Walker Leslie did with her children. Before long, Amazon suggested a book titled, "Nature Drawing and Journaling" by John Muir Laws. I wondered who he was. I Googled his name and reached his website. Thanks to Amazon (whatever they say about it) I was hooked on his workshop videos. 

John Muir Laws says in his blog, "If you do not find a Nature Journal club in your area, make one. I will help you if you need it." I would have preferred joining a club that somebody else had organized, but unfortunately, I could not find one. So, I thought "OK, fine, then I will start one for us." I sent him an email to ask how to start it. I was going to start a small local club at first, but I also wanted people who live outside my area to be able to join. I decided to name my club Japan Nature Journal Club. What a big name!  I hesitated a little with it, because I am not the kind to be a leader! My inner critics bothered me for quite a while. 

Emilie Lygren, a nature educator and a writer who wrote the book “How To Teach Nature Journaling” with John Muir Laws, kindly encouraged me by saying, "Having a big name means you are able to include lots of people as the group grows". I am simple-minded more often than not. but I decided to go with the group name.

In November 2017, the Japan Wild Bird Society gave me an opportunity to do my first workshop, then our club started from February in 2018. It is challenging to spread Nature Journaling in Japan. One of the problems was English. When people in Japan hear the term “journal”, most people ask me “Are you working for the press? What kind of newspaper (or magazine) is that?”  I have to explain what “journal” is. It is like a diary, but it is not; it is not even a newspaper. I have to explain a lot of things to make people understand what it is. I wondered if I should use a suitable name translated into Japanese, but it was even more difficult. I finally decided that the English keywords “Nature Journal” could connect people to friends in other countries. That was an exciting prospect!

I am still struggling, but on the other hand, it is a good lesson for me. I am a visual, not a verbal person. My nature interpreter license helped a little. I was invited to some major events for nature educators and had opportunities to have Nature Journal classes there. Only a few educators had heard of it, even though they have been working as educators for years, and they enjoyed this new tool to engage with nature.

I started monthly field trips at a prefectural nature park in my area and organized events with non-profit organizations to protect the local nature and environment. As a conservation artist, this is also what I wanted to focus on. The attendees said “This is a new approach to appreciate nature! It is a wonderful way to learn nature and open a new door for us!” It will take time to spread Nature Journaling here, but I can see people around me, like my mom-friends, have an interest in it when they hear about it.

My style of journaling has changed again these past few years, to be more sophisticated and including more information. And I enjoy it with my 6-year-old daughter! Now one of my dreams has come true!

In 2019, I visited California to attend the Nature Journal Conference, "Wild Wonder", held at one of the most familiar cities in the U.S., Monterey. Whoever thought I could meet John Muir Laws so soon? I also never expected to meet Clare Walker Leslie in person! When I held the first workshop in 2017, I announced in front of people, "I am going to visit John Muir Laws in the next 3 years. Anyone can come with me!" without any planning. I expected it to take much more time. The conference also gave me a wonderful opportunity to meet my old friend, Debi Shearwater; I would never have expected to see her then. I met her through Robert Bateman in 1994 and visited her several times after that. I was able to go thanks to my friends, the Suzuki family. They kindly took care of my daughter that I had to leave behind while I was away for a week.  

Before meeting with Clare Walker Leslie in person, I contacted her in the spring of 2019. I had never even thought about meeting her in person in the future. I contacted her because I felt I should get her permission to use Nature Journaling for my activity. I know I should have contacted her before starting my club, but she was one of god-like existence to me. I had not enough confidence to contact her. But I thought I need to do it. As we exchanged emails, she gave me these delightful and encouraging words, "I am so glad you are teaching Nature Journaling."

This spring in 2020, we moved to Kochi, 800km southwest from Kanagawa, the prefecture next to Tokyo where we lived. Here in Kochi there is nature all around and lots of subjects for Nature Journaling. My daughter started school and has started to learn writing. We were able to play in nature while schools were closed due to the virus. I am so happy that we moved here. My daughter is so excited with our new place, more than I thought. I rediscovered that you can teach a child everything they need from nature, that Nature Journaling methods can help to solve most things for home-schooling, and that it also works for adults as a meditation to overcome worries in this difficult time. 

I too have had a lot of joy, sadness, regrets and anxieties in my past and ongoing even now. I can say that Nature Journaling will help you to have a clear view of how to find a better way for your life through observing nature near you carefully. Nature always shows us how to survive in tough situations. Nature Journaling will lead you to the right way for you. Nature journaling allows you to connect to other people in the world, because we are all part of nature. 

One thing I feel sad about was that I had to quit field trips at the nature park in Kanagawa. The members were also disappointed, but we can connect online now. The moving mess is finally getting cleared away and my daughter's school restarted recently so now I am preparing my online classes for Nature Journaling. Of course, I look forward to restarting field trips here someday.

I will keep learning from nature. How should I live as a human, how should I try my best for my daughter and for all our children, how can I connect with people? I will keep learning with my people through nature and Nature Journaling. To me, it is a life of joy and peace. “Everything you are doing is important and good." I will continue to try to do the best for our children, just as Clare told me.

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You can find more of Eriko’s work online through Artists for Conservation, on Facebook and Instagram. You can also find out more about Japan Nature Journal Club on Facebook. 

A journal without fear - and a one with “happy accidents”

My Perfect Page

I spot a blooming succulent, pick up my non-photo blue pencil, block out my proportions - perfect, check. I pick up my pencil, imprint some charcoal - perfect, details check; shape & size check. I pick up my watercolors, a few splashes of vibrant pigments, perfect - color & values check ! I pick up my brush pen, mark my highlights, throw in some background. My perfect page, check! A sigh of relief, I didn’t mess it up, I never want to mess it up … fear, check. 

An Attempt Towards Unchecking My Fear Box

A year ago, It took me anywhere from six hours to a whole week to complete a single two-page field entry. If thats your intention it’s not a bad thing at all. It wasn’t mine. After spotting a critter, my brain would tune into the most beautiful flow states of I notice, I wonder, and It reminds me of … and a few hours later I would return home with faint blue markings from my non-photo blue pencil, only to realize filling back my pages was now a chore.

Then, Africa happened. We saw our first Thomson’s Gazelle! Then a Grant’s Gazelle. Then a Topi, Bush Buck, Water Buck, Dik Diks, …. and don’t even get me started with the cats and birds. Imagine my six hours per critter journaling habit trying to sieve through this avalanche of information. After a day or two of cognitive warfare, my brain began optimizing. It started prioritizing information flow and focusing on how I saw the world through my own lens. Now, what I saw in the Gazelles was only the information that was needed to help me differentiate between the twenty or so antelope family members I was about to see on this magical journey. My intent was set - The Comparative study of visual features in the Antelope family. It didn’t matter if my proportions or shapes were inaccurate as long as my brain was capable of associating my chosen form with an Antelope. Here is what I came up with … Boxy Gazelles!

After returning from our African nature journaling trip with Jack, this habit stuck and more so, flourished! 

Empowering My Brain By Setting Intent!

Let me revisit ‘My Perfect Picture’ example I started this article with. There are multiple choices you can make depending on your intent. Here are some examples of how I chose to re-do the same page and independently focus on color (an idea spawned by Amy Schleser), size and details. Try it yourself ! Pick a subject of your liking and focus on just one aspect of it. By doing a little less, you will end up doing much more!  

Building My Own Creative Construct

I think, we are all perfectionist in our own capacity. I have come to the realization that a mind which is hard wired by perfectionism will use all available means to create a perfect picture. What if you intentionally constrained these available means and programmed your creative construct to allow for ‘happy accidents’ ? 

Eight months ago, I stopped using anything but a thick Pental water brush and a black brush pen in the field. The idea was to drop any journaling tool which gets me too critical of my page and degrades my connection with nature. So - no erasers, no correction pens, no rulers to draw perfect straight lines, and no more pencils in the field.

“There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.” - Bob Ross

First month was scary. I would twitch at every disproportionate bird I drew that could not be fixed. Next month, I got used to it. In the third month I experienced a sense of freedom like never before. My in-field faint non-photo blue pencil marks transformed into bright bold brush pen strokes with vibrant gouache fills. By the fourth month, my brain and my journal had formed a prolific bond of creativity.

Please note, this is just my current in-field kit and I still practice with all kinds of medium when I am back home. I have my fun Posca pens, Prisma color pencils, Tombow brush pens and so much more. But when I am in the field, my intent is to be quick, fearless and automatic. 

My Journal Is A Cognitive Tool, Not An End In Itself 

I want to reach a place where my journal is not an end it itself, rather it is a journaling tool to augment my cognitive process while in nature. I want to be more mindful of what is in front of me and use my pages as an extension of my brain. A place where my thoughts can run wild and free. I want to build a page without any fear. Am I there yet? Maybe not, but it is still liberating. 

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Our pet mantis and the infinite loop of curiosity

“Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But there is no doubt in my mind that the lion belongs with it even if he cannot reveal himself to the eye all at once because of his huge dimension.” 

- Albert Einstein

John Muir Laws aka. Jack Laws, our mentor, often tells us that the biggest revelation of nature lies just beyond the point where we stop asking questions. The infinite loop of curiosity. 

I have been nature journaling since the past two years and have gone through many different phases during this time - desperate to make my drawings pretty, struggling with watercolor, stressing over my questions being too “basic”, not knowing enough. Phew! Those were some stressful times. But, something changed over time which made journaling a VERY fun experience for me. 

In retrospect, I learnt that nature journaling is like solving a 10,000 piece puzzle. When you are gathering the first few pieces, you have no idea what to do with them. You struggle for the first few days, and then YAY! You make your first connection and learn to enjoy the process. This gives you hope and you keep going. The disjoint sets of information eventually start to come together to form a bigger picture. Satisfaction!

I learnt that simpler questions about our observations in nature lead to bigger, more complicated questions, discovering the answers to those questions leads to more questions. You slowly learn to ask different questions and to ask questions differently over time, and before you know it, you have signed yourself up for a lifetime of puzzle solving fun. 

“Gargi, you lie. There are only so many questions you can ask about something”. Let me walk you through our latest nature journaling obsession to demonstrate how fun it can be to get stuck in the “infinite loop of curiosity”.

My husband (Akshay Mahajan) and I adopted a ghost mantis (Mithun) in April 2020, our first pet ever! Never having taken up the responsibility of keeping an insect alive before, we started reading about the care and feeding instructions and noting down the information in our journal. We started journaling about insect anatomy, leg anatomy, took measurements, zoomed in on all parts and noted our observations on paper, counted how many flies it ate each day etc.

At this point, we had no clue what observations were important to note, what the right questions to ask were, what measurements were important to take, why we were doing this and where it would take us. We were mainly just capturing descriptive insights.

Then we started seeing some unusual patterns. Our mantis rejected food for the first time, stayed inverted all day long and did not move from its position for many hours. We were worried that we did something wrong during our caretaking but then it molted after 2 days. AHA! Could the change in behavior be related to the molting process? Will we see the same patterns again during the next molt? How much bigger did Mithun get this time? Will it need more food now? What parts look different than they did before molting? Should we expect to see any new behaviors based on the new appearance? ……..and the fun began! 

We decided to journal about the molted exoskeleton next. What good could come out of studying a discarded exoskeleton, right? This is the part where we stop sleeping peacefully for the next couple days out of excitement. We could see the eye cover, antennae, legs etc. on the exoskeleton.  Does that mean that the antennae also grow bigger over time? (We noticed the presence of antennae on the exoskeleton in a different picture later) Why? How does the fat abdomen squeeze out of a tiny rupture we saw on the exoskeleton? How do the fat portions of the leg come out of the thinner portions of the exoskeleton? Did it stop eating to get thinner? Was there a chemical reaction taking place on the inside which made it not want to eat? So many unanswered questions. Now we had a version 2 of the important measurements to keep a track of. Things started to make sense and we never may have arrived at these questions if we did not track our clueless observations and questions in the first place. We started to think about its digestive system, nervous system, circulatory system etc.

Finally, the most rewarding and addictive part of this care taking process has been experiments! There are not enough resources on the internet to give all the answers, so how do you get the answers to keep the curiosity cycle going? EXPERIMENTS! Akshay and I are currently brainstorming on what attributes we can test against to understand what triggers a Mantis to attack vs ignore a “prey” item. We even went overboard and wrote up a computer program to simulate various prey scenarios (Akshay) and built a database system (Gargi) to capture the Mantis’ response for further analysis. BRAINSTORMING IS THE BEST!  

Here are some of Akshay’s work-in-progress pages:

The 2018 version of me never would have thought that I would be able to hold an insect in my hand and study it someday. (Thank you Stephanie Dole). The 2020 version of me is now curious about what the 2060 version of me would look like. 

I hope this made you want to go and start a pet journal (dog, cat, mould on an orange, flower on your plant etc. all count) as your next project. Try recording slow-motion videos, timelapses, imagining cross sections, studying zoom-in views etc. to help you learn more about your pet. 

Happy Journaling!  

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You can find more of Gargi’s journal pages on her Instagram profile @inkuisitive.being.

Nature journaling as an exercise in mindful observation

About 18 months ago, after a few decades of doing almost no art at all, I drew a leaf and some gumnuts I’d found on a walk with my dog, earlier that day. That seemingly insignificant moment marked my return to drawing, and eventually the start of a perpetual nature journal to record botanical pieces that caught my eye, throughout the year.

A perpetual journal is one that you add to year after year, so that the dated pages become a collection of the things you’ve seen at the same calendar time, over many seasons and years. My journal is divided into weekly double-page spreads (Because I couldn’t find one book with enough pages, I have two: one covering January to June and the other June to December). There’s no pressure to make an entry every day or week (I certainly don’t always manage it!), it’s simply a creative way to record change, connections and observations over the years.

I had barely drawn at all since I was a teenager so I decided to develop my skills with the things I could observe most easily - Australian native flora in nearby bushland and things in my garden. Over time, my perpetual nature journal has become not only a personal observation of local plants but the catalyst for reigniting my creative expression. It’s also become a practical exercise in mindful observation.

I’ve had a daily meditation practice for many years, much longer than I’ve been nature journaling. I quickly noticed that the way I experienced and recorded the natural world drew on elements from my meditation and mindfulness practices.

Mindfulness is often described as ‘being in the moment’, but it is more than that. It’s about making a deliberate choice to pay attention to your immediate experience (most easily done by noticing what we can observe with our senses) and to do so in a particular way, that is, without judgment and with compassionate, open-minded curiosity. Among other things, the practice helps train our attention and observational skills. It deepens our connection to what’s around us by encouraging us to suspend our assumptions and be open to noticing things exactly as they are.

Each nature journal is unique. All are creative expressions of our personal interests and ways of seeing the natural world. We all pay attention to different things in different ways and there is a huge variety in what we are interested in putting on our pages, but the contents have something in addition to nature in common: they are all the results of our sensory observations. Whether we are sketching outdoors, working from a photo or memory (or a combination of all these things), our journals are full of our records of where we have placed our mindful attention. They reflect what we have noticed about how something looks/moves, feels, smells, tastes and/or sounds.

My journal reveals my interest in textured botanical things: pods, seeds, dried leaves, bark and the fascinating flowers of the Australian banksias and grevilleas. I have a small sketchbook, which I take with me on walks. Later, I can draw a more detailed piece in my perpetual journal, working from a sketch and photo, or from a sample I’ve collected.

I don’t have formal art training so my ‘technique’ is simply close observation. A lot of the time I wasn’t sure how to draw my subject - especially the banksia pods and flowers, which I love so much - so I started from the observation that everything is line, light and shadow. I looked at the directions of lines and shapes, what overlapped and where the variations of light and dark revealed outline and depth. It was six months before I had the confidence to tackle my first banksia pod and it still gives me pleasure to see how my skills grew, by looking carefully and drawing regularly.

I also did most of my early drawing in ink pen, for the simple reason that I wouldn’t be able to erase anything. Prior to this, my teenage drawing experience had been almost exclusively in graphite. I decided, however, that using a pen would be the quickest way to exercise my ‘drawing eye’ because I would be compelled to REALLY pay attention knowing there would be a permanent record in my journal of every pen mark! Later, I experimented with coloured pencils and watercolour, and I’m continuing to learn as I go.

There is another helpful approach to drawing called ‘beginner’s mind’, which also comes from my meditation practices. It’s a way of looking at things with ‘fresh–eyes’, as if you are seeing or experiencing it for the first time. This attitude allows the mental space for new information to come through that you might otherwise have overlooked. As expressed by the Zen master Suzuki Roshi: “In the beginners mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

So instead of knowing you are looking at a ‘leaf’, try thinking of it as just a collection of colours, held within a shape. What can you see? It’s amazing the additional details you start to notice. You might become aware of tiny hairs on a flower stem that you thought was smooth or see tones of blue and green (and more!) in a tree’s bark which, at first glance, appeared to be just shades of greys and brown.

Recently, while doing a coloured pencil drawing of a banksia flower I noticed that amongst the obvious browns and orange- yellows were unexpected flashes of a flesh- pink tone. Just adding dashes of that colour brought more depth to my drawing.

So, my nature journal has become as much an exploration (and experiment!) of how I can show what I see as it is a record of what I see.

Our natural world is an amazing treasure of shape, colour, texture, taste, scent, and sound. It is also a living, breathing, seasonally and climactically evolving landscape. As I draw, and journal, I am continually reminded that paying close attention to the small things is a pathway for connection to the bigger world around us.

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You can find more of Pauline’s work on Instagram @wild.pencils.

Finding my way through nature journaling while working and being a Mom

I will start with a little introduction about myself and how I began my nature journaling journey. My name is Carrie Rogers. I am a (soon to be) 35 year old artist and nature enthusiast from the UK. I am also married and have a 2 year old son who is at home with me each day. I have always been around nature from a young age through walks in the woods with my parents, feeding the ducks, visits to the seashore and visits to many national trust sites and castles all which are set in beautiful gardens and grounds. I will share with you a couple of nature specific memories I have from when I was a child. I remember having this little A7 notebook when I was about 6 or 7 years old, it was tiny but it had a popup Red Admiral butterfly on the inside cover (no idea where it is now unfortunately). I absolutely loved it and if I saw a Red Admiral in the garden I knew that I was correctly identifying it because of the pop-up in the notebook. This led me to want to identify more of the butterflies that came to the garden. I remember feeling a little disappointed that it was always cabbage whites (which is actually quite funny to me now, I don’t know why). Another memory is collecting conkers, acorns, pine cones etc. when we visited any woodlands, mostly a place called Sutton Park which is a 2,400 acre national nature reserve in the Midlands. It’s actually one of the largest urban parks in Europe and is made up of heathland, woodland, wetlands, marshes and has 7 lakes inside it and a Donkey Sanctuary. You can also find there, if you are lucky, a herd of wild ponies. My parents both have a huge love for nature so it’s this park where I spent a lot of my childhood learning from my parents the different trees, animals, insects and birds and I think without having this period of my life I wouldn’t be the person I am today. It definitely instilled my love for all things nature and subsequently steered my love for drawing and painting into nature too.

Me and my mom, aged around 3 years old, and me and my Dad, aged around 1 years old. This is the same garden in both pictures and also the garden I did all my very important butterfly spotting in!

So, fast forward to 2020 and here we are, I have my own little family to inspire and teach nature things too. 

My Son Isaac, who was born in March 2018, enjoying the buttercups on the edge of the field.

A lot of people who follow my Instagram account (@carrie.rogers.art) will have seen the woodlands behind my house on my story posts. It is where I am doing 80% of my nature journaling at the moment (the other 20% being my garden). I would usually visit a lot more places but with the current pandemic we are very limited to where we can go. The woodland behind my house is a trust owned nature reserve It is 12 hectares of woodland predominantly made up of Oak, Beech, Horse Chestnut, Hazel, Birch and Alder. It also has grasslands and ponds and in spring is carpeted in native English Bluebells. I have been involved with this woodland for many years now. I am currently the Vice chair and I produce the quarterly newsletter for distribution to the local area to keep people up to date with the many conservation projects we have going on. We have a Bat box scheme which we regularly check all of the 47 bat boxes and record the species, size, gender etc of all the bats we find. We have twice yearly moth trappings run by a local naturalist group. All the moths that are trapped get recorded onto a database to help us keep an eye of changes in the environment and then set free. We also have a micro fungi survey that has been taking place during the last 4 years with over 250 micro fungi species recorded onto the database, as well as other small mammal, mini beast, bird surveys etc. I have been a nature illustrator for a number of years now, but I never put the two together, I would just record data and photographs for all of the surveying but it never occurred to me to actually do a nature journal. Which is crazy when you think about it! 

Some shots of the surveying we do.

I think it was probably around September 2019 when I actually started painting things that I found in the woods but it was mostly just as A4 watercolour paintings without any kind of explanation to them other than ‘stuff I found in the woods’.

Mushroom studies from mushrooms I found in the woods and took home.

I went into an art shop in Birmingham around December time, I had earned enough rewards for my £10 voucher and I saw this little Khadi notebook 15cm x 15cm. I bought it with no idea what I would use it for. It wasn’t until January 2020 when I actually thought ‘wow, this would make a great nature journal’ and so it began.

The front cover of my journal.

I was instantly hooked on completing my nature journal each week and even though I had a lot motivation to get outside into nature I found myself with a refreshed sense of motivation. I felt a bit like I was seeing things with new eyes. Instead of just finding things for data I was finding things for art and, in a strange way, I feel like my nature journal is a new hobby even though it combines both the things I usually do, recording nature and creating artwork.

My nature journaling has given me a new level of….hmm, I don’t want to say peace because it sounds a bit cliché…but I find the whole process relaxing and very rewarding. 99% of the time that I go out I have my two year old son with me and he is an utter inspiration. Everything to him is fresh and new and exciting. The level of glee my child expresses from seeing a ladybird is absolutely joyful. I often think back to when I was a child a think ‘Yes! This is it, the wonder, the intrigue.’ I always want him to feel that.

Isaac and his beautifully innocent love for Ladybirds.

I love that we are able to go outside and spend time just finding stuff. He will be looking on the path in the woods and come running to me with the plainest pebble you ever saw and have the biggest smile on his face, exclaiming ‘WRROCKK!’ so proud of his find. He hands it to me to examine. I look, crouch down to him and we examine the ‘WRROCK!’ together, ‘wow buddy this is awesome! I LOVE it!’ His smile even bigger, he swipes the rock from my hand and into his pocket and runs off to find something new. I often add the little things he finds into my journal. I hope one day we will be able to read through them together and go over all our little adventures, and when he’s a bit older he can add his own little paintings and drawings into the journal too or even just start his own.

Nature journal page showing a snail shell that Isaac found and handed to me (I now have a rather large collection of snail shell treasures).

Nature journal page showing the first flowers of spring and some slime mould I found in my garden.

I think it is so important for kids to experience nature, at its rawest, dirtiest, smelliest, and wettest. Those are the memories that they will remember and will stay with them. I genuinely don’t remember playing as a kid unless it’s the memories of playing outside or in the woods (I have a vague junior monopoly memory, which we won’t talk about). Everything that I remember is butterflies, frogspawn, tree swings, feeding the ducks, paddling in streams, catching sticklebacks in nets, mud pies, lifting rocks and finding newts and creepy crawlies, watching for foxes, collecting shells at the beach. Those are the memories I wish for my son, not endless cartoons and video games. 

Isaac playing in the mud.

Isaac having a good old sniff of some Jelly Ear fungus.

My nature journal has given me the platform to give myself time to relax and paint as a hobby not just for work and to teach my son about the nature around us. 

A few people have said things to me in the past…oh you should watch him in the mud he will get dirty; there might be germs; don’t let him pick up snail shells they are disgusting; I can’t believe you let him hold a mushroom he could be poisoned (luckily I am fairly knowledgeable about these things so I know what is safe); I can’t believe you are taking him out in the rain…the list go on. And I think how sad it must be for the kids who just sit inside and play video games and don’t get to play in the rain or the mud or smell moss on trees.

I have had a lot of people say to me that they would love to start a nature journal but it’s never the right time of year or their art skills aren’t good enough, they don’t have time. It is always the right time to start a nature journal. Your artistic ability doesn’t matter, the journal can just be like a diary with nature doodles, or take photos and print them out, cut them out and write facts about it, how was the weather etc. You don’t have to spend hours outside you can just look out your window, what do you see? Record how a houseplant changes through the year, record what spiders come in your house.

Lastly I wanted to share some of my favourite poems with you, a snippet from a Byron poem and a poem by Mary Oliver:

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There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more 

- Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

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How I go to the woods

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single

friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore

unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds

or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of

praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit

on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,

until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost

unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love

you very much.

― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

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Find more of Carrie’s art on Instagram @carrie.rogers.art.

Nature in my pocket

I’m new to nature journaling, but nature is not new to me. My childhood was spent in semirural areas in Melbourne, Australia. I often walked to my first year of school on dirt roads, with a gaggle of other children. We looked for tadpoles in dams, hunted for mushrooms under pines and filled our pockets with tiny treasures. 

Later, we moved to a large block filled with Australian natives, backing on to old apple orchards and natural bush. Hours were spent playing in the garden, watching birds and at night, hearing multitudes of frogs croak, whilst possums danced and thumped on the roof. 

Now I live by the Yarra River in inner city Melbourne. There are large areas of native bush and a children’s farm just a short walk away. The river is an ever-changing source of wonderment to me. Slowly flowing one day with Dusky Moorhens and Pacific Black Ducks feeding. You might see Herons fishing from a rock and families of Black Swans in spring. Tiger snakes and Blue tongue lizards frequently cross the river path in summer, causing unwary walkers to squawk loudly. At the moment it is moving quickly, dark brown and flooding its banks over the paths. I belong to a volunteer group who remove environmental weeds from the river’s banks, replanting with indigenous grasses, shrubs and trees. We hammer stakes deeply, hoping the plants can hang on in the swirling waters.

I still fill my pockets with tiny treasures, fallen gumnuts and blossoms, empty Cicada shells and pretty pieces of fallen bark. I have an art class with adults with intellectual disabilities. At the start of this year, I introduced them to nature journaling. I brought in a box of leaves, seeds, flowers, cones and feathers. They selected what they wanted to draw and some went outside to choose their own finds. One student discovered that he could smear the yellow petals of flatweed flowers to colour his sketch of the flower. Nature journaling has become their favourite activity. We have had to postpone our art class, due to social distancing requirements. The students have been encouraged to keep going with their journals at home and we’ll share them when we are united again. 

Inspired by the joy my students got from their journals, I started my own journal recently. In this strange time, it has become a refuge for me, I become completely absorbed in what I’m drawing. I think about the life cycles of flora and fauna and research what I’m drawing to learn more about it. My nature journal has become a place of peace for me. 

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Jennifer’s work can be found on her website winterowls.com and on Instagram @winter_owls.

Creating with nature

‘Nature always wears the colours of the spirit.’  -  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Creating With Nature

Walking and sketching outside encourages you to explore and discover in nature, resulting in you developing a stronger connection to the landscape.

I am an Environmental Artist and I take my art outdoors to create with nature, whatever the weather.  Outside in the elements I feel energised with the wind and rain on my face, connecting with the weather, leaves and the trees to create nature’s art. It’s a whole creative experience for me. I love to sketch on my walks and with my small sketch-kit bundled in my rucksack. Off we go out of the door, on a new adventure, excited to discover who will join me.

I sketch landscapes before me or nature’s treasures I discover along the way. Both give me a stronger connection to a place, recording them in my memory and on my page. Sketching little things helps you to discover the art of seeing, looking closer at the detail, and you really do start to notice things you never did before. You form a connection with what you are sketching and creating with, opening up a whole new world to you, which takes you to magical places all within a few feet away. This can provide some much-needed time-out in nature, which we all need now, more than ever. Nature journaling is the perfect way to learn to see and connect, and I often have a little beetle or spider rocking up on my page to share the experience with me. That’s all part of it too for me.

Sketching under Beech Tree

Painting a Scots Pine Cone in the sunshine

It is very rare to find me creating indoors, as I have become even more connected to nature recently, through drawing and painting with trees and the wind in the garden or high up on the Ridge. I love watching the brushes dance in the wind with the trees as they tell their story with ink on the page. By immersing yourself and taking the time to see things from a different perspective, you will begin to connect with nature in a more meaningful way. I live so close to nature and the countryside and I have been lucky to watch the leaves emerge from the Beech tree which painted the sketch below. There’s something special about that connection we now have. 

A Beech Tree & Wind Painting with inky Paint Brushes on Hergest Ridge

If you see something which captivates you, you start wondering, What is it? What is it called? You want to place it in our World. Then you begin a wonderful adventure, discovering all the facts about it, building a story and a connection. Sharing knowledge about our natural world inspires me and this has grown throughout my life, both through my curiosity and my full-time job in Conservation working across the UK.  

Discovering and identifying Nature

Close up of an Ash Tree Fruiting

My adventures are often filled with encounters with nature, which makes them more exciting and fun.  I thought I would share one with you below:

Painting with Nature & the Weather

Out of the door and into the storm, wrapped up ready for the weather upon me. Wind and rain on open ground blowing through and around, connecting and creating with the natural world as the sounds of nature swirl around me. 

With a clipboard and card taped down securely, watercolour pigment drops fell and with the rain, danced across the page. I added leaves, seeds, lichens onto the board, to be blown by the wind to create nature’s art with the help of the weather. 

Under the Himalayan Fir tree for shelter, I close my eyes and transport myself to the land the tree was from. I breathe in the air, feel the rain on my face, connecting with nature. Whilst the birds call, a tiny spider crawls up onto me and a squirrel comes over to see what it’s all about. For one moment, I thought it was going to walk across my inky page I had left out, to let nature play about.  

These creative moments in nature energise me as I connect with what is around me and to the landscape.  Whatever the weather, there is always something you can do, to feed your creativity, and it is healthy too. 

Painting with Nature, Rain with Dr Ph Martin Watercolour

Rain Painting with Dr Ph Martin Fine Art Watercolour

 ‘A drawing is simply a line going for a walk’.  -   Paul Klee

A Walking Sketch, lines drawn as I walked along, without looking down and maintaining the pencil contact with the paper at all times.

So, whatever the weather you can create, with nature out of the door, discovered beneath your feet.  All of this is within your reach. Just have fun playing with nature for Nature Journaling Week.

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See more of Katherine’s work on her website www.thewalkingsketchbook.co.uk and on Instagram @thewalkingsketchbook.

A nature journal story

As humans, we’re very good at making assumptions about ourselves. I know I am!

The two things people usually say to me about wanting to start a nature journal, (after ‘Oh, I wish I could do that’) are: ‘But I can’t draw, and I’m not a natural history expert’. 

I thought I’d share my own nature journal story, because, believe me, if I can keep a nature journal, you can too! The photos here tell the story of how my journals have changed over the years...

So, off we go then….back, back, far back, to the time of the dinosaurs Okay, it’s really the late 1960’s, but how great would that be…?

Well, my lifelong love of nature began as a child.  I was always either outdoors, or inside drawing, and writing stories and poetry. (So not much has changed then!)

In the 1980s I became fascinated with the concept of ‘traditional’ nature journals, through Edith Holden’s wonderful work, published as ‘The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’, the journals of Beatrix Potter, and the paintings and travel writings of Marianne North.  I gazed at the pages of gorgeous work, thinking how amazing it would be to have my own journal…. 

Except, I couldn’t. I knew I was completely useless at art. I failed my Art ‘O’ level, after begging to be allowed to take it as a subject in my (very) academic school. This made me consider myself a creative failure for many years. In addition, I’d only taken ‘O’ level Biology as a science subject. 

Despite not having scientific leanings, I used my other academic skills, and also volunteered with several wildlife organisations. This helped me to get a job in the UK environmental sector. For over 25 years, I helped create opportunities for people to connect with nature and worked on some fantastic projects.  I kept drawing as a secret hobby, because I was ashamed of my failure, but I loved it so much I wouldn’t give up.

Through the work of Cathy Johnson, an artist and naturalist from the USA I’d long admired, I discovered a new world! I bought her book, Artists Journal Workshop, joined her Facebook group, connected with some amazing and supportive people; began to draw regularly from observation,  and record the world around me.   

During this time, I drew all sorts of different things, which boosted my confidence, along with the connection with, and encouragement from, my new community.  Gradually I realised that my sketching and writing was becoming more and more focused on the natural world I loved so much. Constant observation, practice, and not being an expert helped me question things. I learned, and continue to learn so much about drawing, and about the natural world. (Possibly being incredibly nosey and wanting to know everything helps a lot!) 

What happened though, was I began to keep a nature journal and it just evolved, naturally. It’s taken me years to find my journaling style, and it’s still evolving. I’ve tried all sorts of different approaches, being inspired by many talented artists. Eventually though, I realised that, although I might love someone else’s beautiful layouts, detailed data charts, or exquisite calligraphy, plain and simple works for me. Pencil and watercolour are where my heart lies, along with telling my little stories.  My journal is a homage to those original artists and naturalists who inspired me.

Nature journaling has become an integral part of my life. I feel it if I haven’t done an entry. My mission now is to get as many people as possible finding how fantastic it is to connect with, and experience, nature, through creating their own journal pages 

 I hope my story will encourage you if you have your own fears and concerns about starting a journal. There is so much help and support available in our wonderful, global nature journal community. 

Please join us!

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Find Jules online through her website: www.drawnintonature.com. She also regularly shares her beautiful work on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.