I would like to begin nature journaling to reflect on the different birds and places I have been and to be present in the moment. I really like the idea of a monthly journal page and incorporating color.

Living on the  river during the summer I  just enjoy sitting on my deck  in the mornings and watching  nature.    I like the idea of boxes  to go back and  look up more info to learn more about the picture.  I also like the idea of  putting  date and time  of where I was each day.

I’ve become interested in nature journaling because I love being in nature and wanted to kind of document my observations. Although I’m not the greatest sketch or paint artist, it’s really just for me so I can record and then remember interesting things I come across in my garden,  on walks, or someplace I’ve visited.  I like Holly’s style of journaling. I’ll probably incorporate her idea of drawing one observation subject and write a little bit about it to recall the moment to my mind in the future.

I've always fallen in and out of journaling. The longest journal I had was a personal work journal that I kept up on for about a month but then stopped using it after I changed duties. But I've wanted to get back into it to express my feelings more and also logging what I've seen in nature. I would like to do a little bit more writing in combination with illustrations. The last girls journal was amazing with all of it's sketches. I hope I can get to that still level at some point.

I spend all work days in front of a computer. Being out in nature revives me; mind, body, and soul.  I want to maximize the experience by learning about everything I see.  On solo hikes, I'm taking more time to observe everything from the littlest plants, lichens, and insects, to the grandest trees and geologic formations. I take guided nature hikes and I have ID books. But to really understand and remember what I'm seeing I think journaling is necessary.  Writing and drawing about my experiences aren't things I'm naturally good at, so I signed up for this class.  I'm especially horrible at drawing, but I think with practice I will improve.  I think drawing will help me to focus in on the details of what I see.

I started journaling the flowers in bloom in my backyard, alone, no one around, very private and unsure of myself. With time, I took courses on drawing and watercolor, and months later put together a portable journaling kit which I brought on my vacation trip at the beach. The relaxed pace helped me try all kinds of drawings and, slowly, I immersed myself in my drawings and was astonished at the results which gave me strong emotions of pleasure and content, every time I looked at them. To my surprise, the extended family eventually took a peak and enjoyed them as well. I was finally opening up my secrete universe to others and sharing my love of the nature and enjoyment in drawing. It drew me closer to others and started many conversations. I guess I came out of the closet after many months and years of drawing alone ans keeping it very private. Now, after 3 vacations, I feel totally relaxed to get my set up out in the open, and enjoy the simple and natural conversations and exchanges when people I don’t know come to me to look, comment and share feelings about my drawings. I have grown as a person from shyness and a strong desire for privacy to a person who now enjoys sharing my love of the nature. With time, this very private hobby and passion of mine drew me closer to people and bring me much peace and content. I was not expecting this added bonus. Artistically, each drawing got better simply by continuing to draw, experiment various mediums, tools, papers etc. It is now part of me, a source of happiness and a way to illustrate how deeply I feel the beauty of nature which somehow translate on my drawings. I hope this course help me cross this new step to go out regularly in nature and woods to capture all the beauty I see. I joined an ornithology club, this community is helping me go on outings regularly and start my new adventure.

I love being in nature either walking in a park or spending time in my garden.  I want to deepen my experience and I think nature journalling will help me slow down and be present in the moment.  I used to be good at art when I was younger but moved away from it as I focused on a career in accounting.  I realized how much I missed being creative which drew me to this.

I am a naturalist,science teacher and aspiring artist.  Nature journaling is the perfect marriage of these interests of mine.  I’m hoping to start simple and my own pollinator garden in my yard. With my own plants and my own yard I can do it on the daily basis, and I can see how things change in the season. I hope that it could be a record for myself, my memories, and for my grandchildren to see how the garden grows.

I want to combine my love of gardening/nature with my love of sketching. Sketching an object teaches you much more about an object such as a tree or plant than a photo ever could.

I came to nature journaling as way to slow down and be more mindful about what was there around me but which I was kind of taking for granted. I also wanted to learn how to draw and paint as this is something that I have always found a little challenging. I like that all the journals were different and that really there’s no right or wrong way of doing it- it kind of just evolves!

Nature journaling feels like a way to slow down time.  In a fast-paced life it is too easy for all the details to become blurred.  I want to use nature journaling as an opportunity to sit, observe, sketch, write a story, take a note with no pressure for the end result or a rush to finish.  I found looking at the various journal styles very freeing in the fact that you can do it however you want, and it may change over time. Putting the pen/pencil/brush to paper is the hardest first step.

I have kept personal journals since I was in the Peace Corps 1970 to 1973. I often put sketches and pictures in my journals, but have never been satisfied with the quality of my sketches. I now travel a great deal with my wife and have taken up birding as a hobby to keep me occupied as we go from place to place. Now I want to keep up journaling ( I have been lax for the last few years) and at the same time increase my skill at depicting what I am seeing in the journal.

I am both an artist and a biologist and I want to be able to merge the two skills. The journals above sure gave me lots of inspiration. I like how some are framed, I think I want to try that. I also really liked McNeills sketchbook approach, but I think i want to lean more towards the first one with notes and illustrations.

The various nature journals shown were inspiring and, yes, also intimidating! Still, they show me how to learn to look closely and to really see and the drawing (good or bad) is not so much the end as the means to help me do that.

I enjoyed the variety in these different examples! I also love Edith Holden's "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" - I loved that she included poetry and other things within her journal and have used it as a model for my nature journal so far this year (though my drawing talent if very novice... so what I've created so far is not so beautiful).

I am a very big birder, and I've found that a lot of birding is trying to see as many species as you can during a certain time or at a specific place, a lot of birding is all go, go, go, rushing around from species to species. Nature journaling will help me slow down and take time to appreciate the little things about the birds, and their environments, that I love. I want to begin nature journaling to understand my favorite birds more in depth, and become more knowledgeable on their behaviors and plumages, all while keeping track and cataloging experiences so I can look back at them forever. I liked the first girl who had boxes around her drawings and writing woven in between the boxes. I like how she set aside a seperate space for her drawings, I think trying that in my own sketches will be helpful to me because I write a lot in my journals, so much so that sometimes words have to take up the whole page, and the sketch has to go on a whole separate page. I like when both the sketches and their explanations are on the same page. I am very excited to do this course!

I have always loved nature but birding definitely inspired me to journal. I am also a fly fisherman and see amazing things while out on the river. I'm excited to integrate that in my journal as well. I think my journal will be a combination of the styles we saw but was particularly impressed by the first girl with the boxes for drawing and writing around them.

I can't access any videos. It says that the video may be temporarily down or could have moved to another location...:(

Actually I did not want to have a journal, and I still don't. I just wanted to improve my sketching and painting of nature. I am a bit disappointed to find so much information about journaling but perhaps I didn't read the fine print well enough.

This will be a new area for me; although I have taken a variety of art courses, and have sketched birds in the past I like the idea of combining what I actually see on the trail instead of just taking a cell phone pic or making a note on my phone. I think the issue will be standing, since I have moderate arthritis. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to sketch on trail.

(Unfortunately I keep losing my notes here when I temporarily switch to another page. )   I am a retired field biologist who worked in natural resources.  I have sometimes used field notes to keep track of my field trips, but often those included notes and small sketches about miscellaneous, non-target, issues.  However, those notes later helped me piece together things that later became important to what I have seen.  So the idea of field notes/journal is something I value, and should have used more. I have tended to use photography more than drawings to record images of interest to me, and recently have tended toward macro level images... small details of twigs, insects, flowers etc.   But interesting images and patterns of all sorts attract me.   I would expect my journal to be one with detailed images flowing across the page with only minimal respect for borders and frames.   (note photos at: https://rgdudley.smugmug.com/ ) -RGD  

I am an English teacher who taught Henry David Thoreau's works for years. I started nature writing during that time. This past summer,  I was inspired to keep a journal because I took trips to Nova Scotia and the Galapagos and wanted to keep notes of these adventures. I also spend a lot of time on Cape Cod during the summer. I tried to include drawings in my journal but found it never looked how I wanted it to, so I stuck to writing. This course popped up the other day after I had asked someone about taking beginner art lessons, and I thought it was a sign. I was inspired and a bit intimidated by the drawings of the woman who used boxes on her pages to create her pictures and then write her observations around the boxes. I liked the looks of the boxes and felt like I could make some small pictures to start with. But I liked everyone’s journals, and I’m excited to add images and colors to accompany my writing. I wish this class had popped up a year ago.

I have always loved being in nature, whether it be for sporting activities or just observing.  Lately I've started to take time to be more present and in the moment in all aspects of my life.  I thought perhaps by starting a journal this would help me to slow down and really take time to focus and observe the nature I was enjoying.  Trees, plants, lakes, streams, birds and all wildlife.  I also think by drawing and writing about what I see will help me learn and identify what I don't already know. I'm excited to get started.  I just hope I'm not too hard on myself because I'm not the best artist like some of the journalists I watched in the videos.  They are so talented.

I just love birds and I was really looking for a way to reignite my love of being outdoors and my relationship with nature.  I wanted to pull myself away from devices more and pursue the magic of the natural world.  I very much enjoy whimsical art that uses animals and nature as the focus.  So I am hoping to use this course as a stepping stone towards creating art that integrates nature, birds, whimsy, and magic.