My goal is not the end product but the doing. To be free to experiment and learn new things. Change/not to be afraid to  make mistakes. Sometimes I know this will mean going a little too far, but how will I know if I don't try. Commiting to this I know , whatever the outcome,  that I will be giving myself the gift of seeing - something that happens every time I allow the time for a regular practice of drawing. I will begin to really see  all the wonderous details in everthing I see - throughout the whole day. Can't wait, and so encouraging to see the other journals and read the other comments of people on the journey too! thank you! Joanna

I love capturing the beauty of nature.  It's important to me to record the details.  It helps me to relive the experience.  Writing in a journal is a way to connect to nature.  Viewing other's journals have greatly inspired me.  I began tracing leaves and soon learned the identification. I tend to do more writing then drawing because I'm not a great artist but would like to learn to draw more and add color. The tracing of the leaves helped me put size into perspective.  I filled in the veins by hand, added color to some.  That was an encouraging way for me to do something that looked nice without drawing the full object.

1. I took an introductory art course a couple years ago and learned the basics of drawing and painting but have only done a little bit of painting since I completed the course. I feel painting in a journal may be less intimidating than a stand alone painting. Also, I started birding a little while ago and would like to be able to keep a journal about what I see -- not just the birds but also plants and other animals I may see. Nature journaling seems like the perfect opportunity to allow me to practice drawing and watercolour painting and improve my observational skill. 2. I want to try the combination of drawings, in a box,  and journaling about the experience or observation.I like the structure of having the date, time, place and weather in a small box in the top right corner. I want to try the idea of showing a magnification to show more detail.

I'm inspired to begin nature journaling because the drawings I have made that I really liked in the past have been of nature--particularly a few good bird drawings done from taxidermied specimens, when I took an ornithology course in college. I'd like to practice doing it more, practice drawing from life more, and mix it with the kind of idea gathering journaling that I use to inspire writing. I find that the style I like best is one that intersperses plenty of textual record with drawings, and I really loved the examples with boxes drawn around the artwork after the fact. I expect that I will be doing quite a lot of backyard birds and plants. I want to think about how to use a fountain pen or two in journaling, because I've seen writer friends do that in ways I would love to try out.

Hi, my name is Sally. I really enjoyed watching the videos of the different journaling methods. I would like to start my journaling with date time and weather. I like the insert boxes that show magnified parts of the drawings. I will be using watercolor to begin with and I would like to use a nice script done in a very fine pen. I am a bit of an organised person so I am sure I wont be happy with my journal until I have a method of setting it out. I will probably use loose paper or another pad to jot things down in and to catch my rough drawing then tidy up in my art studio into a more permanent journal. That is just me.  I love nature and can think of no better way of enjoying it than to start a nature journal. I am always taking photos but in doing this I have noticed that I am actually missing out on really seeing the things that I photograph.  I never even knew that nature journaling existed until quite recently and I was thrilled with the idea of making one. What a wonderful way to enhance memories of thing that we see. I am very happy to begin this course.

Hi, my name is Caroline. I bought this course as a birthday/retirement gift to myself! My retirement plan is to live and travel full-time in an RV and to develop my creativity and my ability to express what I'm experiencing in nature. I haven't done a lot of drawing in my life, and I've never really experimented with watercolor or colored pencils, so I'm really looking forward to exploring all these different techniques in the course. I really resonated with the way Jewel used her journal as a memento and a way to share her experiences with others. Also, one of my goals is to learn to distinguish the various colors in what I'm looking at, and to be able to represent those colors in my art, so including the color swatches on the pages appealed to me.

Hello Everyone, my name is Duane. I have to say Liz inspired me to begin this course. I am not sure how I came across the Bird Academy, but I started reading and watching the videos. I have been an artist all through out my life. I live in Alberta and love nature and all things found in it. Biggest part of my goal I have set out to achieve, is to enhance my drawing-painting skills with birds and nature. I have also never written a journal, I think this is fantastic. I feel this excitement to share this learning experience with everyone here.

1. I was inspired to begin nature journaling because I have always loved birds and wildlife.  The last few years I have tried to be outside to get my "nature fix" at least once a day to relieve stress. I am trying to expand my skills with photography and watercolors, as well as remember the wonders that are outside.

Hi my name is Terry and I took the course as a way to do something creative during the lockdown this summer and reconnect with my previous study of Goethean Science.

Hi everyone my name is Becky. I have enjoyed reading the reasons others have enrolled in this course. I have kept written journals in the past, but I have never sketched or used water color to record the natural world around me. I’m hoping to acquire these skills.

I’ve always loved nature and have been taught by great uncles, grandmas and moms to see things that are hidden by slowing down observations. I love the idea of a scientific journaling habit that would also help me meditate. I’d like to try a journal with a couple of main pictures of the subject and smaller detailed “pop outs”. I think this would be most valuable to me if I write observations, behavior notes and a note about researched facts.

Currently, I paint wildlife from the photographs I take.  I would love to be able to quickly paint a sketch of what I see.  My block has been picking and choosing from all my tools in my studio...I cant take my studio with me, but can easily take a camera.  That has been my excuse.  My diary has kept the dates, location, weather, etc. for the photos I take.  The journal would do the same.

I have been looking at this course for the last year.  I even bought all the materials and then did not enroll for a forgotten reason.  I just finished the beginning birding online class offered by this organization and after looking at birds in my neighborhood, came home and drew them.  My skill with watercolor is non-existent, so I decided to take this course to add splashes of color to my drawing and start taking my journal with me on my walks.  Social distancing has offered up opportunity for this kind of activity.  Walking alone gives me time to study things around me that I see every day but don't really look at.  I enjoyed all the journals and was thrilled to see that even with the different styles and abilities the results were so pleasant to me and so meaningful to the person creating the journal.  I look forward to starting.

I have always enjoyed being outdoors and learning about nature, but usually I was very active, hiking or biking. Now that I have small children we cover a lot less ground, and that gives us a chance to appreciate the details. I am interested in nature journaling for something to do while my kids are immersed in outdoor play and also to do with them as they develop the interest. There are so many wonderful nature apps (eBird!), but sometimes I find myself on my phone more than I like,  looking things up or taking pictures. Hopefully nature journaling will help me to stay present in the moment and also help model appreciation for nature for my children.

I have always enjoyed drawing... it helps me to focus on details and to look closer at things. I am married to a knowledgable biologist/ ornithologist and we are both passionate about the outdoors and wildlife. I love recording our findings in my nature journal. I have been keeping a nature journal for a while now, but haven't focused on it lately and wanted to spark a little life into my artistic pursuits again.   I'm also hoping to improve my drawing skills, in order to draw more realistically.

I have been a lazy journaler and now have time and space to invest in paying attention to the beauty around me. I am fascinated by the little brown birds in the backyard feeders. I want to get close, to somehow capture who they are. Nature journaling as a creative discipline seems like the perfect solution!

I'm really going out on a limb here (pun intended) trying this nature journaling. My main goal is to enjoy the process and be satisfied with what I can do, not what I think I "should" be able to do. I really love the beauty of nature in all its forms and hope to be able to capture some of that beauty on the page.

I have a large back garden that I am trying to cultivate and grow.  In the past I was not particularly interested in gardening, although I grew up in a family with keen gardeners.  The past two years I have taken to gardening and it has become a labor of love.  I have watched the garden grow and change.  I am observing all the flowers, vegetables, berries, insects, birds and animals in the garden.  I want to record what I observe in a creative way and in a more conscious and active way.  Presently, I take a lot of pictures with my phone.  I like the time, location and weather stamping method.  I also like the boxes around my drawings.  I am hoping to be organized in my journaling, I am not particularly organized so that should be interesting.

1. Hi my name is Adella. I love nature and watching behaviors of birds, enjoy plants, watching insects/butterfly.  I live in Florida and love the subtle change in seasons.  I love looking in bird field guides.  Love the photos and admire the detailed drawings.  I like helping with citizen science projects.  I never thought of nature journaling, but a friend of mine gave me the idea.  I do not have a talent for drawing, but would like to give it a try. 2. My favorite is Holly Faulkner.  I like the way she presented her pages representing each month.  I liked D.J. McNeill's sketches. I liked Liz journal.  It reminded me of the way a children's book is layed out. I would like to try a combination of my favorites. 3. Not at this time.

1.  I have always wanted to nature journal but never believed I could draw anything that would ever be recognizable to me let alone anyone else.  I, therefore, took up photography and have used it to create shutterfly books of memories of all my international trips.  But with Covid 19 and more time as well as no options to take my next international trip I thought this is a great time to try and develop this skill to add to the word journals I do when I travel. 2.   I want to mix my words with my drawings and then add in the background I can look up when I get back inside if I don't happen to know that background already. 3. Not yet but I think the more I journal the more personal the style will become.

I am Andrienne. I have been doing nature journaling or at least nature drawing for many years. I have an associate of arts degree in studio art from Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, MA,  and I have also studied art at many other places. I am not  a professional artist really but I regard art as my avocation. I call myself a civic artist, by which I mean I participate in local events in Fitchburg, MA where I live, which invite artists to draw scenes of Fitchburg. And the works are later displayed in a public place. What inspired me to do nature drawing is that I love gardening and I enjoy bird watching and watching squirrels and whatever other wild animals come into my back yard— yes, even skunks. I have taken nature drawing classes at Tower Hill Botanic Gardens in Boylston, MA. So when I saw this class offered by Cornell School of Ornithology, I just naturally signed up for it. Of the different artists who showed their journals in this first lesson, I really liked the journals of Shayna Muller and Holly Faulkner the best. I like the way they interwove their comments with their drawings and especially the way Shayna drew rectangles around her drawings in a way that seemed to create unity, but I derived some inspiration from the other artists as well.

I'd begun nature journaling before this pandemic, but rather haphazardly, with no real plan or schedule.  Several friends were doing it, and encouraged me.  I watched a number of John Muir Laws videos and really liked his approach.  Now that I have more time I decided to take this Bird Academy course to encourage myself to sketch every day.  I've been walking in the woods near my house every day for the past weeks, recording the birds I see and especially noting the new ones arriving as they rest during their migration.  So since I'm outside already, I'd like to use some of the time to sketch in my journal.  I also have a small journal where I've been sketching all the different warblers, noting their markings in hopes to learn them better, but I'm doing all this from books.  Now I want to be able to draw directly from what I see outside.  Gesture drawings are something I really want to practice and get better at.  I like the combination of drawings with written observations and questions.

Like many of the folks who responded I have joined this class during Covid-19; a nature journal seems like a good way to really be in the world and present to it, while still social distancing. The idea of sharing my observations feels challenging and yet absolutely critical as a way to reach out to others; a way to share the world. Since I retired about 4 years ago I revived my interest in describing the natural world and asking questions about my observations. At that time I began to learn to draw and work with watercolors as well. It seems natural to join learning words to describe what I see (from natural history and gardening) and drawing. I suspect putting both words and art to a page will help me "see" much more. All of the journals in the video gave me ideas for my own journal as did the beautiful examples of other respondents. Having tried to journal before I will be loose about the when of my observations-so the idea of a month of contributions and a record of how things change in the month will work well I think. I like the idea of boxing images and key ideas after writing/drawing. One of the things I loved from the videos was that people went back over their experience of drawing and observing and gained new insights. I would like to take a page each month for a reflection on what I have already drawn or written. I loved the description of what the spider was doing and liked the idea of adding specific notations on behavior where possible. The journalists seemed to both work out the colors and "how to draw" along with how to observe and what to observe. This is exactly the juxtaposition of art and science I would like to try out in a journal.

I love being in nature.  I try to  catch as many specifics in my surroundings.  I also love feeding & watching birds.  I saw the course offered on the Cornell site & thought it would be a good way to learn more about my surroundings. I am retired & started journaling about my daily activities, thoughts, feelings ... I also took a watercolor class at my local Art Museum school & I thought the combination of nature journaling made sense. All of the journals were unique & interesting—I really liked the organization of Shayna’s, her use to study with it. I really want to try the idea of a daily or monthly journal os sketches, observations, & specifics/details of what I see. I do not have a specific idea for my journal yet—that will come.