Journaling my thoughts and feelings have always been therapeutic for me. Due to COVID-19, I decided to finally decided to try a new hobby: watercolor painting. This course seems like the perfect way to blend the two. I am a recent graduate of wildlife biology so I would love to use this practice to enhance my field skills and continue to be curious about nature. I liked Shayna Muller's and Holly Faulkner's journals. Many people have mentioned how Shayna used that zoom in approach, which is something I would like to try. I tend to become hung up on layout (blank pages can be intimidating). So I would like to jump in and make it more collage-like and random. Which brings me to my goals for this class. I get caught up in the notion that art needs to be perfect. My goal for this class would be to let go of all expectations and allow myself to feel the simple joy creation can bring.

My friends and I decided to do this course together. This is great because it gives us incentive to stay on track. I have wanted to keep a nature journal for awhile but don't think I can draw that well. I am excited to try and I have come up with a goal which really excites me. My son and I have started beekeeping and I am an avid gardener. Now I am wondering what pollinates all various plants around me. I think it will be fun to observe my garden closely and find out the answers to this question. I like Shauna Muller's journal keeping style because she keeps information in a way I find attractive and logical.

I like the idea of putting similar thoughts on one page, expressing an idea on one page through these pictures rather than a making it a memory of a single trip or visit somewhere. I hope to use this type of journaling to gather and organize my thoughts, and perhaps to express sentiments. I know most people seem to be using this type of journaling to capture a memory, and maybe I'm way off mark, but that's my plan. I used to draw a lot when I was younger, and in recent years have tried some watercolor and acrylic but was really pretty lost about how to go about it. In the last few years, I have been working on my garden, planting natives and butterfly and pollinator plants. I have registered my garden as a Monarch Waystation, and a Pollinator Garden. I have had so many little visitors I was in awe! And now I want to capture my guests, my feelings, my little patch of the world through this journaling and maybe share it with the world. I hope this course will give me some direction and insight on how to make this a reality.

Hi, my name is Nolan. I'm excited to begin nature journaling because it will be a fresh new way to express my love and fascination with the natural world. I enjoy birding and identifying plants, and I think journaling will enhance these activities. I like the first journaler's journal. I want to have a fun and creative fusion of drawings and text to help remind me of these experiences and for knowledge retention. I'm pretty stoked.

I have been retired from government service: case worker, case worker supervisor, probation officer, psychiatric social worker, and finally correction's counselor. I have been restoring my health for the past 5 years: I changed my diet.  I used to keep a large garden before I got ill.  I am looking forward to growing a small garden soon. Grew tomatoes, garlic and onions plus lettuce, carrots and peas. At this stage of my life a Journal will help me organize myself in preparation for the day that will surely come.

1. To Journal like this allows me to revisit the trip, the experience, and those days. I am looking forward to using the combination of the scene and setting, the artistic details or subjects, and then adding notes and observations, or tiny maps, to be better able to conjure up the moment again. 2. The first impulse I have for a direction on a journal style: I think I would be adding pages to the journal as brief pencil and pen sketches with added notes, observations and speculations. I will try to add watercolors of special images, or do color swatches to remember images.  Jayna's description of zooming in for a detail or a color swatch sounds interesting, and will be tried first.

Inspiration: I have alway been a keen observer of nature but have never tried recording what I see artistically--I can see where this would be very helpful in learning species--plants, animals, insects etc...I was interested in the course previously...now with some extra time at home ( there is only so much Netflix one can watch...), I decided to take advantage of the generous free offer and give it a try. Journal Style: All the journals were beautiful and interesting...I really liked the idea of using a "zoom" image for details..I liked the including the date, time, weather, location idea...I like including both observations in detail, quotes, and images--I also like the idea of organizing some pages with boxes  while others may be more free formed... Journalling Ideas...I have played with art journalling a little, I may also add some other paper cuttings or images into the nature journal.

1. What inspired me: Lately, during the COVID 19 epidemic, I have been going into the nearby forest alone and observing, drawing and journaling. I was amazed at what I was learning just by paying attention. I also started to sketch the birds I was seeing, memorizing what they looked like, then returning home to identify them, learn their songs, and sketch them from photos.  I want to continue this rewarding habit and sketch more and more directly from nature.

I saw this course on the website and gifted it to my sister (free!) then decided to buy one for myself. I never had art in school - all music and books for me! But I took a water color class at a community center decades ago, before marriage and kids, and now have some time to try it again. My mother instilled in my family a love of nature and the outdoors. She passed away last year at about this time. Thinking of her and now having to slow down with Covid-19 restrictions have inspired me to give this a try. Without being able to travel, I think it’s time to appreciate the environment I have the privilege of living in, the northern suburbs of Chicago close to Lake Michigan. The elements of the journal examples I think I could re-create are the notes and info on place, time, weather, etc. Some of the talented artwork will be daunting! I am still waiting for my art supplies to be delivered - purchased online, I guess they aren’t an essential service. It will be fun to get those paints out!

This course is a gift from my children and their spouses for my 65th birthday. My family knows of my love for all things nature (especially birds) and the course will help me capture memories and the wonder of nature. I want to leave a journal & sketches for my family to enjoy.

I have wanted to take this course for awhile, but I am a very busy teacher of 8th grade and college.  I finally have the time to do it!  I also have some burrowing owls across the street from me who always have their babies in May, so I thought I could capture some of their antics.  I really liked the monthly journal or the journals from trips that people made.

My inspiration for taking this course is my lifelong love of nature and a desire to learn to draw and record what I see. I think I was born with that desire but it was put on hold many decades ago when I was nine or ten and I was trying to draw a deer jumping across a log. My teacher looked over my shoulder and told me I shouldn't try to do that anymore because I couldn't. So I have motivation!  I also want to use what I learn to show young people all the things there are to appreciate in the outdoors and that drawing and painting does not have to be frightening and intimidating.  Love the ideas on how to compose pages and information, and to look at my journal as an experiment, not as something that will be judged, not by me or anyong else. I want to learn and have fun.

Watching my daughter take her online art lesson at home due to Covid has reminded me that hey, I used to do that.  I had many wonderful art teachers over the years in public schools but over time, I stopped creating with pencil and paper.  I have never stopped making some kind of art; it just hasn't been on paper.  I do sew creatively.  For example, I make my kids' Halloween costumes, quilt, and do all kinds of needlework (embroidery, cross-stitch).  My oldest son and I are both into nature photography and we take mostly bird photographs.  Recently, I took up ceramics but that is on hold now due to Covid.  Animals have always been a large part of my life as pets and as subjects for observation.  I volunteer as a naturalist for a local Audubon Society and that has rekindled my love of bird-watching which I have alway participated into some degree but there have been highs and lows to that.  I guess I have a bit of short attention span and like to try new things!  Yesterday, my son and I participated in backyard bird count with our local Audubon Society and we counted 22 species.  Not bad for not leaving the house!  We were supposed to go to Peru and the Galapagos this summer.  That may now be on hold.  Regardless, I would like to try my hand at depicting some of the nature I see at home and perhaps in these wonderful wild places.

1.) I've been drawing for as long as I could hold a pencil, and I've loved being outside, but I never really connected those two things entirely as a kid. I've been wanting to become a better nature journalist but haven't had time will being a student. These journals (and journals I've seen on social media) have inspired me! 2.) I like the idea of creating bounded boxes for works. I struggle with space and placement when journaling, and I like the look of the boxes. I think it will work! My work has often been an afterthought of birding. I predominately work in colored pencil which is difficult, if not impossible, work do in the field. I'm hoping this course will help me branch out of my comfort zone and explore my home with COVID rages on.

I’m a Texas Master Naturalist and love exploring and learning about our beautiful world. I also started water coloring local flora and fauna during the recent quarantine. It’s been such an enjoyable experience so I wanted to learn more.  I thought I could incorporate it through my volunteering as a Master Naturalist but also to keep record of my experiences and travels (I lead global insider trips, but those are all cancelled right now). I most resonated with the first and last nature journals in the video. I loved the mix of watercolor, sketches, and blocking with details. The last one was just beautiful and inspiring more as an artistic approach to nature journaling. Looking forward to this course. Thank you!

This course is my gift to myself as part of a year of learning to celebrate a big birthday. I hope that once it becomes easier to travel again as COVID wanes, I will have had practice in my yard and neighborhood and can sketch as I explore new places. I am trained as a landscape architect and look forward to developing interpretation and representation skills that I really never grasped in school. The journals where impressions and experiences are recorded in little vignettes and text really appeal to me. I am awed by the beauty of the sketch a day/page a month journal, but also took valuable lessons from the fact that many journalers had drawings that were interrupted. One of the approaches that I think I'll adopt is capturing the colors present in swatches - even if I didn't get everything thought through on paper, those colors would help spark memories. For me, I hope to make my journal a collection of memory triggers that brings me back to the experience of the place and time.

1- I have developed an interest for birds in the past few years and sometimes I sketch them on the field to document my observations and identify the birds back home. So I have actually been journaling without really acknowledging it... But the drawings I have done so far are awfull!! I hope to get better at drawing my observations after doing this course. (a photo of my horrible drawings attached) 2- I am also very curious about the vegetation that I find in the woods and I usually use photography to keep the memory of it. But I love the idea of drawing it instead. For this purpose, the first journal presented in this video is the model I would use to start. A square around the drawing and lots of notes. I like the scientific approach of it. (I attached a screen capture of my Instagram page on which I post my nature photography under the name 1xparjour) 3- I would like to start a herbarium as well, maybe as a side project to pair with my journal.

I've been wanting to improve my field notes and field sketching for years and this course came to my attention when I was in the Amazon rainforest in March.  Two of my fellow travelers were enrolled in the course and their journals were amazing.  I really like filling a page with a balance of notes and sketches in a blended sort of way.  Not too formal and not to loose.  Excited to get started!

I am a nature photographer. I have been occasionally journaling in the past. I find exciting to capture the mood and impressions of a day's exploration in nature. I would like to include material from journaling to nature books and exhibitions. Drawing feels to me is like a meditation. The sense of time is other.

A friend gifted this course to me after we spent time in Maine tracking lynx.  What a sweetie! Each afternoon, I would come back to our cabin and I would write down my observations for the day.  No sketches during the day, because of the cold.  I would like to spend more time journaling outdoors, as I usually take a photo and then get to painting it later. I want to slow down, notice the details and describe them. Be present to the moment and capture it quickly. I also want to notice how I feel when I am out there, what messages come to me.  What else do I notice while I sit there using my senses.  Like what birds did I hear or see while I was sitting drawing skunk cabbage.  Maybe a poem will come, or just a little phrase.  I like the idea that the drawing will help me remember the moment, but I also want to notice how I feel and to record that.

I want to move from the thinking about creating a nature journal to the actual work of journaling. I've dabbled here and there, but didn't always get the results in my drawings that I wanted. I so enjoy closely observing the world around me, it seems nature journaling would be a natural fit.  Observing the work of these journalists, I found bits and pieces from each journalist that I'd like to try - Shayna's drawing causes thinking causes writing cycle and her "zoom in" sections in her drawings, Jewel's it doesn't have to be perfect, but feels like a sacred text, William's picture on one page, text facing page, Margaret's easy style of pencil with multiple attempts to go after the details she wanted to portray, D.J.'s concentration on impressions and behaviors, Holly's lesson to use smaller brushes to get the details she wanted with water colors, and Liz's combination of large scale using contour, and intimate scale using details.  Liz's style is most natural for the approach that I'd like to take with my journal.  I like the way images and text enveloped each other. She has a way of capturing the essence of the day or experience.  Hannah Hinchman's journaling style is another one that I enjoy.

A peer in my Master Naturalist chapter suggested this class.  I want to become much better at sketching.  Also, I'm hopeful that the close observation sketching requires will translate into helping me identify plants more easily.  Also, I've never used water colors (although I paint with oils), so I'm excited to try a new medium. I really like the idea of recording the date, location, time of day, and subject of each sketch.

I am eager to learn to identify more critters, and I am sure nature journaling will be a big help. And I have always wanted to spend more time drawing. I want to use my nature journal in the field to help capture memorable sights.

• My daughter was kind enough to give the course to me as a gift; however, I completed my first watercolor class at a local community college this past fall, and we share a love of birds and the great outdoors making the gift not only thoughtful and appropriate but timely as well during COVID-19.
• I appreciated all of the journalers' styles but was particularly struck by Shayna Miller's and Holly Faulkner's journals. I gravitate toward outlining my art in black as in Shayna's journal, but I also love the crisp, artistic quality of Holly's pages. With that said, I also think something could be gained and used from each of the journalers' styles.

Like many others I decided to pick up this course while I'm sheltering in place because of COVID-19.  I drew so much as a kid and it's a habit I have been trying to re-establish for years. I'm an avid birder and nature lover so I figured this was a good way to merge several things I enjoy.  I really liked the example of the journaler who had the daily and then monthly spread.  Daily is definitely too ambitious for me but filling a page per month seems doable.