Beginning a Nature Journal Online Course

Looking for my latest offerings and posts about nature journaling? 

Go to my brand new website! I have a section dedicated to all my nature journaling offerings.

Click Here

Learn the secrets of field sketching and create a beautiful illustrated nature journal.

Register HERE

Imagine using art to connect with nature

Imagine learning ways to fine tune your listening and observational skills so that you can deeply engage with the natural world. Then imagine that you have a repertoire of creative skills that allows you to quickly and easily sketch the beauty in nature, beauty that takes your breath away and fills you with a sense of calm and well being. Imagine creating a beautiful illustrated book that holds all of your experiences in nature through drawings and personal journal entries. Each page laid out with lettering, backgrounds and beautiful watercolor sketches.

That would be a book that you would treasure forever.

Now imagine making that a reality…

Learn the secrets that will help you Succeed

Nature journaling relies on sketching techniques that are quick, easy and simple. These types of sketches capture the essence of your subject and don't require photographic precision, or years of drawing instruction.

Anyone, at any level, even a beginner, can learn these simple sketching techniques and create a beautiful nature journal.

The secrets that allow you to work quickly outdoors are easy once you know them. They will provide you with the skills to document your experiences in nature season after season, and year after year.

Beginning a Nature Journal is designed to guide you step by step. You will expand and deepen your connection to nature and grow in your creative
abilities.

Are there Bonuses? Yes, Of course!

Extras and Bonuses

• Pinterest board  - Contour Line Drawing
• Pinterest board - Nature Journals & Sketchbooks

           from famous Naturalists and Artists

• Pinterest Board - Nature Quotes to Use
• Materials & Supplies PDF w/ clickable links
• Make your own Watercolor Travel Kit  PDF
• Field Essentials Checklist PDF
• How to Bring Wildlife to your Backyard PDF
• Bibliography PDF
• Color Mixing Cheat Sheets
• Private Facebook Group

Bonus Videos

• Washi tape
• Blind Contour drawing
• 3 Landscape Sketching Videos
• And a few more

Is this course a good fit for me?

• This course is perfect for the absolute beginner. It contains all of the foundational skills necessary, presented in clear, compact lessons. Plus, you’ll be able to ask me all your questions in the interactive classroom or during the live Q&A sessions

• It’s also great for those with some sketching and painting experience. Maybe your skills are a little rusty, or you’ve only taken a few classes, and you want to continue learning and growing. This course allows you to expand your knowledge and skills.
• If you’re more experienced but are overwhelmed when you work outside, and have difficulty capturing what you see quickly, then this course will offer help in those areas as well. If you’re more experienced but are overwhelmed when you work outside, and have difficulty capturing what you see quickly, then this course will offer help in those areas as well.
• Most of all, this course was designed for those who love the natural world and want to form a connection with nature through art.

How long will I have access to the materials?

• The entire course, including all of the modules and lessons remain your in Ruzuku forever, so you can go back and revisit the material any time.

• All PDF documents can be downloaded to your computer.

• After you've completed the course you can still connect with me, other students and alumni in the private Facebook group, Nature Journal Journey.

A little bit about me...

In 1984 I graduated from Caldwell College with a BFA in Painting. I worked in the corporate world for a short while in human resources. Then studied floral design and worked as a florist. When my children were young gardening was my creative outlet. In 1999 I came across the book A Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, and immediately knew that I wanted to create journals like that. Keeping a nature journal led to plein air painting and that led to creating large landscapes in the studio. I began exhibiting, and took a deep dive into the world of art. I taught, lectured, was represented by a number of galleries and gained entry into a number of prestigious art organizations. All of that was happening while I was homeschooling my three children. Then somewhere around 2009 I began to gravitate back towards working in a sketchbook, creating art for the sheer love of nature and the enjoyment it brought me. Gradually, I began letting go of art shows and galleries. For the last several years I have focused exclusively on making personal art in my journals, and nature is always my favorite and most meaningful subject. I teach sketching, and lead nature journaling retreats that weave together a deep connection to the natural world and creative expression. My children are grown now and my husband, two Shetland sheepdogs, and I live on a lovely piece of property with a thriving beaver pond and community of wildlife.

The Course Contains Ten Modules

Module 1  Introduction

• Lesson 1  Inspiration
• Lesson 2  Philosophy

Module 2 Materials and Set Up

• Lesson 1  Materials and tools
• Lesson 2  Setting Up and Making Time

Module 3 - Learning to See, Learning to Draw

• Lesson 1  Contour Drawing
• Lesson 2  How to Simplify Complex Subjects
• Lesson 3  Nature Journaling in the Field

Module 4 Line Work

• Lesson 1  Shading with Lines
• Lesson 2  Line Work
• Lesson 3  The Importance of Working Quickly

Module 5 Color Mixing Skills

• Lesson 1  Color mixing
• Limited Color palette
• Mixing Neutrals
• How to Identify Non-Descript Colors
• Mixing Natural Greens
• Sky Colors
• Atmospheric Perspective

Module 6 Watercolor

• Lesson 1  Painting Techniques
• Wash
• Wet in Wet
• Glazing
• Shadows

Module 7 - Landscapes

• Lesson 1  Choosing a Landscape
• Lesson 2  Simplifying
• Perspective
• Creating Distance
• How Light Creates Form in the Landscape
• How to Use Mark Making to Describe and Simplify

Module 8 - Layout/Design Skills

• Lesson 1  Borders
• Simple
• Decorative
• Lesson 2  Lettering:
• Text Blocks
• Headlines
• Lesson 3  Designing a Page
• Picture Planes
• Vignettes
• Grids,
• Backgrounds
• Groupings

Module 9 - Journaling/writing

• Lesson 1  Basic Data
• Lesson 2  Recording your Impressions
• Lesson 3  Descriptions and Questions

Module 10 - The Wrap Up

• Putting it All Together

Are you ready to begin keeping a nature journal?

• Ten Modules
• Video Tutorials
• LIVE Q&A with Me
• Interactive Classroom
• Bonus Materials
• Bonus Videos
• Private Facebook Group

$197

Register HERE

Should You Nature Journal from Photos?

Looking for my latest offerings and posts about nature journaling? 

Go to my brand new website! I have a section dedicated to all my nature journaling offerings.

Click Here

click image to enlarge

Should you nature journal from photos? 

Interesting question, right? Actually, I thought I'd left that whole "working from photos" controversy behind when I gave up plein air painting (that's the practice of painting outdoors, directly in front of your subject, as opposed to painting in the studio from either a photo or your own field studies or both).

Why is this even a question? 

It's a question because people have mixed feelings about this and it keeps coming up. This very question was asked recently in a group I participate in, and it gave me that same sinking feeling that I used to get in the plein air groups I participated in when this discussion would inevitably come up.

So, What's Going On?

This is what I observe. First, there's a group of people who work from photos and really, really want to justify that. They work from photos because it's easier to work from photos, and because it's easier to draw from photos, they're happier with their results. Fair enough, we want making art to make us happy.

I think we all realize that much of the hard work of translating a 3D object into a 2D image is done for you by the camera. So, better results are almost guaranteed, no surprise there.

Photos also hold still, and with a click of the mouse we can zoom in to observe detail to a painstaking degree. Photos can be marked with a grid to help get proportions correct, traced, and any number of other techniques that help you draw.

If your observation and drawing skills are weak then working from a photo will fill in a lot of those gaps.

Yet, I often get the sense that these folks feel guilty, because they realize that if they had better observation and drawing skills they wouldn't need to work from a photo. So they're a little defensive (OK sometimes a lot).

There's another group who are the purists. They will never, ever, ever use a photo and will be pretty vocal about that and condemning of people who do use photos. Do you see why I get a stomach ache whenever this issue comes up?

So how does this fit in with nature journaling? 

These are just my opinions so take them with a grain of salt.

Nature journaling is about interacting with and observing the natural world. I think much of the benefit of keeping a nature journal is lost when you work from photos. From a broader art making perspective I think it is always a hundred times better to work from life (no matter what your subject is) than to work from a photo.

Copying from a photo is one of the surest ways to suck the liveliness and truth out of your work leaving you with a dead, dull rendition of your subject. It takes many years of working from life to be able to use a photo reference wisely.

Is it Ever OK to Use Photos?

Of course. The page above is a perfect example. I was absolutely taken by surprise by a fox at a local park. She was literally right there, she didn't seem to mind my presence, and walked right in front of me as she crossed the parking lot to enter the meadow to hunt. I followed her and was able to observe from a fairly close distance. She ignored me and went on with her hunting, (and if you've ever watch a fox hunt you know how absolutely adorable they are when they pounce!).

Needless to say I was pretty excited, and began literally scribbling down her movements. I mean look at the sketches on the left hand page. They are nothing more than ridiculously bad gesture sketches done in seconds flat. But... they are very authentic. They recall for me my excitement, her quickness, and did I mention my excitement?

I also snapped a few photos with my phone. While the fox was still there in the meadow, and after I had filled the first page with gesture sketches, I did the two more developed sketches on the right, by both directly observing the fox and referring to my phone photos. That, basically, is how I use photos, as supplements to direct observation.

Here's the Rub

Even after thirty years of being an artist, I still struggle with other people judging my work and comparing it to other people's work. I thought when I began to focus solely on nature journaling and sketchbook work that I'd be in an arena where everyone was working pretty much directly from life. I thought that the value of rapid, gestural, lively sketches done on the spot would be appreciated and understood.

That's not the case though, and I find it difficult sometimes to remember that not everyone is going to understand that some of the really amazing "sketches" that they see online were actually done from photos, and that working from life is a very different genre with different qualities that make it amazing.

Stay True to your Call

I don't particularly like to work from photos, unless I'm really focusing on a bird, or animal  and I need time to deconstruct its anatomy, markings etc by making drawings from photos, so that when I see it in the field I have a knowledge base to dip into as I'm sketching. I'm not interested in doing scientific, bird or botanical illustrations. I'm all about the gesture!

What I do love is being outside, and the challenge of sketching directly from life, even if the result is only a very quick, scribbly gesture study like the foxes above. I don't particularly like knowing that viewers are comparing sketches I have done in a matter of minutes directly from a moving subject outdoors to someone else's sketch done from a photo that took hours to complete.

To help with that I continually remind myself why I value the approach I've chosen. I really, truly do believe that working from life is the best possible way to approach nature journaling. It certainly brings me the most joy.

At the end of the day I love what I do. I value each and every sketch, the more developed ones, the scribbly ones, the half-finished-because-the-subject-ran-off ones, the really "bad" ones that I try not to think of as "bad". I've made a commitment to myself to value and honor all my sketches for what they are: glorious experiences of the natural world, honestly recorded in the moment.

Own your Process

I think it's important to own your process. If you work from photos, understand your reasons for doing so and say so when you discuss your work publicly. If you work from life, accept that your sketches are going to reflect the rough and tumble excitement, motion and inaccuracies that working in the field produces. Love what you do and how you do it. Don't judge or worry about what others are doing.(easier said than done, I know).

Making art should make you happy. Being in nature should make you happy. I made up my mind long ago to make that a reality in my life. How about you?

Can Keeping a Nature Journal bring Natural History Back from the Brink of Extinction?

Looking for my latest offerings and posts about nature journaling? 

Go to my brand new website! I have a section dedicated to all my nature journaling offerings.

Click Here

In June 2014, Jennifer Frazer wrote an article in Scientific American called Natural History is Dying, and We Are All the Losers. That article has once again been making its way around Facebook, in groups dedicated to nature journalers, naturalists and other involved in environmental issues. Its garnered a lot of attention and many comments.

There's been much discussion, and lamenting of the state of affairs that Frazer points out. 


Her article opens with this sobering insight, "In other words, the people society depends on to know the most about life -- people with college biology degrees -- in nearly all cases have no obligation to learn anything about actual living organisms. To me, this is a shocking dereliction."

She goes on to point out a number of other disquieting facts about the stigma of "natural history" within the scientific and academic communities and notes that "Natural History [flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries], when Linnaeus, Darwin, and even U.S. Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt were avid and avowed naturalists. It was a time when basic knowledge of local plants and animals was considered part of a good education -- and of being a good citizen" (emphasis mine). 

Frazer tells us that the enthusiasm for nature study and natural history encompassed schoolchildren as well, noting that between 1890 and 1940 books such as....Anna Botsford Comstock's, Handbook of Nature-Study  were an essential part of classrooms across America. 


I believe that keeping a nature journal has now become a very important part of creating a culture that values nature. In fact, I might go so far as to say that acquiring a basic knowledge of local plants and animals makes us better citizens, global citizens as well as local citizens, who will act, engage and vote with environmental concerns in mind. It may also be a practice that rescues natural history from the dust bin in the university basement. 

Years ago when my children were young I home educated them and nature study was a big part of our lives. We had Anna Comstock's book mentioned above, and we were heavily influenced by the 19th century educational philosopher and practitioner Charlotte Mason, who advocated nature study as an essential part of a child's education. In fact it was during those years that I  began keeping my own nature journals, (badly at first, but with much joy). 

Our children are our future, and the best hope for the future of our planet, and because I think that keeping a nature journal is such an easy, enjoyable but important way to develop a knowledge, love and appreciation for nature in both adults and children I have invited Lynn Seddon, author of Exploring Nature with Children, to write a guest post responding to Frazer's observations and expounding on her own experiences as a Charlotte Mason home educator in the UK. 

Lynn's post will be published on Thursday September 1, 2016 and I hope you will check back to read it. 

Click HERE for a free nature journaling mini-class, and stay tuned for my upcoming online course Beginning a Nature Journal: creating lively sketches of the natural world coming in spring 2017