art journal Archives - Wandering Leaves Studio

A New Plan for Nature Journaling This Week

Since I can’t comfortably hike until these bites heal, I’m dropping back to Plan B — nature journaling at home. While it’s nice getting out and about, why should staying home to work in my journal be any less an exciting adventure? Let’s take a look at what you might find to journal about during a week at home:

My vegetable garden

Bees on the flowers

Birds hopping around the yard

Plenty of squirrels to observe

The neighbor’s cat prowling through the yard

That interesting weed growing next to the fence

One of my many houseplants

The dog taking a snooze in the sun

Pill bugs under a rock

Cloud formations

So many ideas come to mind as I sit on the couch thinking and planning. I’m sure when I actually get outside, something else interesting will catch my eye.

General Drawing Practice: Without Leaving Home

Something else I can do this week while I’m sidelined; drawing practice! I can go back to the very basics and do a few value studies or shading exercises to keep my skills sharp.

This forced downtime is also a good time to get out a few books or comb the internet for anatomy to sketch. I’m really interested in birds, so I tend to draw them frequently. Drawings can be more accurate, if you understand the bone and muscle structure hiding under the feathers, so sketching the anatomy of a bird is a great way to spend some time this week.

As a matter of fact, time spent studying the anatomy of many of the common things we sketch in our journals is never a waste of time! Knowing not only the anatomy of birds and mammals common to your area, but also understanding plant structure will help you to ‘see’ your subjects more accurately and make deeper connections.

Live Camera Feeds: Africa in Your Nature Journal!

Practice your gesture sketching in your jammies! All you need is your sketching materials, your computer, and an internet connection. You can watch animals on live camera feeds from around the world! How cool is that?

Always wanted to go on an African safari, but don’t have the money (or the time)? Navigate over to AfriCam ( www.africam.com ) for a real-time glimpse of the fauna of Africa and sketch to your heart’s content. Or how about a scuba diving adventure? You can’t sketch in real life while you’re diving, but you can capture live sea-life by using Live Feeds! Try ReefCam (www.reefcamtv.com ) or BreatheBonaire, ( www.breathebonaire.com )

AfriCam
EarthCam
Explore

Find bees, birds, farm animals, and almost anything else you can think of at Explore ( www.explore.org ) and EarthCam. ( www.earthcam.com )

All of this drawing practice is a way to nature journal without leaving home. It’s not often that I have mosquito bites all over my feet but there are rainy days, sick days and days I just don’t wanna put pants on,… don’t judge me, you know you’ve had some “no pants kinda days” ha! With all these options and ideas at your fingertips, there’s no excuse for times when you can’t get out of your own house and garden!

Please follow and like us:

Keeping a nature journal is a practice that can be as diverse as the journaler! If you do an internet search on nature journaling, you’re going to find, almost exclusively, articles and how-to’s devoted to homeschoolers using nature journals for science. While that is a very worthwhile endeavor, there is much more to keeping a nature journal than as a ‘science class’! And it’s certainly not just for the kids.

Nobody sees a flower, really — it is so small — we haven’t time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
Gerogia O’Keeffe

Reasons To Keep A Nature Journal

Many of the reasons for keeping a journal of your nature adventures overlap with reasons to just be out in nature, such as:

Mental health
- According to recent studies, time in nature can decrease depression by up to 70%.
- Boosts serotonin and decreases cortisol levels
- Allows you to process thoughts
- Can be a form of meditation
Deeper connection to nature
- Forces you to focus on details
- Slows you down
- Teaches you to ‘see’ your surroundings
- Causes you to be in the here and now

In addition to the mental health benefits, keeping a nature journal can help deepen your connection to nature! Taking the time to sketch, photograph, or interact with nature (through things like leaf rubbings and collecting) forces your mind to focus on the here and now, and on the details that give you that deeper connection. You notice details that otherwise you might miss. Journaling gives you the opportunity to discover the ‘awe’ of natural things and phenomena. Personally, I’m always up for more awe and amazement in my life!

How to Keep A Nature Journal

Good news! There is no one right way to keep a nature journal. If you’re like most people, when we think of a journal, we picture beautiful, accurate drawings accompanied by scientific journaling. Those journals do exist, but the simple fact is most people don’t share their journals — they’re personal. They are filled with one person’s private thoughts and experiences. There is no need to worry about your drawing skills or writing expertise.

Here are just a few ideas for you to use in your own journal:

Pencil sketches
Watercolor drawings
Words only — maybe you just want to capture with words what you are feeling as you observe a bird, sit by a babbling brook, or wonder why that cloud formation looks like an ice cream cone (For writing inspiration, find a list of nature writers in this article from the Sierra Club on nature journaling.)
Objects
- Rubbings of leaves or bark
- Taping flat items to pages
- Pocket pages to hold not so flat items
Photos — If photography is more your style, your journal can certainly be more like a scrapbook.

Tools & Supplies

The last thing you want when you’re out on a hike enjoying the nature around you, is a huge heavy backpack full of art supplies! Luckily, that’s not necessary. All you really need are a few basic supplies. I tend to carry just a smallish notebook and a mechanical pencil. Always having my phone handy for a quick snapshot so that I can remember colors for later is a big help.

Here are a few simple supplies you may want depending upon how you keep your nature journal:

Notebook of some type — for me — smallish and easy to transport
Sketching tools
- Pencil (mechanical — no need for sharpener)
- Watercolors – a very small, dry set
- Waterbrush – no need to carry water — this is a brush with a hollow handle filled with water — you can refill from a stream or your water bottle if you need to
- Graphite stick or charcoal for rubbings
Baggies for collecting items — flat(ish) things like leaves can be taped right into your journal. A flower can be pressed and added in. You may want to include small pockets in your journal for collecting these items.
Camera (phone camera)

Skills

More great news! You do not need any specific skills to get started.

To begin, you need only to develop your skills of observation!
Add in over time:
- Ability to sit quietly so you may observe/sketch skittish wildlife you may encounter
- A few basic drawing or photography skills are nice to have
- Walking with ‘soft eyes’ vs. ‘hard eyes’. Soft eyes means that you are just walking without any particular purpose or intent in mind. If you are focused and actively hunting for something, you will miss other subtle things along the way. In other words, soft eyes is relaxing and you’ll often stumble upon something amazing and awe-inspiring for your nature journal!

There really are as many ways to keep a nature journal as there are people who keep them. What’s your journaling style? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Please follow and like us: