Hey all, I'm so excited to start this course. I recently moved and am looking forward to getting to know my new garden and neighborhood through regular journaling and sketching. I was drawn the the 2nd and the last journals, I appreciate the mistakes and messiness, but also the layout and color in the last journal.

What inspired you to begin nature journaling? So I have a journal I use for my day-to-day diary I include a lot of stickers, washi tape, and photos around my written entries. I wanted to doodle in there but realized I often lacked the space or motivation. I came across this course and thought it might encourage me to focus on drawing itself and of course nature. As a programmer I spend most of my time inside and I am hoping this course encourages me to get some fresh air.   Now that you’ve heard from several other journalers about their processes, and had a peek at their journals, which ideas or approaches do you want to try? I really liked Shayna's idea of using boxes. I would agree that it makes the blank page seem less daunting. It was very encouraging to see how some of the journalers filled their journals with unfinished sketches because this is something I have trouble coming to terms with and why I'm more hesitant to draw (the pressure to have a "finished" product)  

Hello to all, I am a very old newborn to all of this but I want to improve my eyesight by really seeing things. I have never sketched before but DJ's geometric and behavioral observations makes it seem possible.  I am inspired by all those who have shared their journaling and am pleased to join this tribe. Carol Shahriary

I particularly liked the journal that was done in a diary style, with an entry every day. It made the journal a thoughtful reminder of the day's activity without looking like a travelogue. It was very pretty.

1. I have been nature journaling by fits and starts and want to become freer to experiment and become more fluid without self-judgment confining me. 2. The first natural journaler used open boxes that gave a more "finished" look. She also used what she defined as "zoom" to look at a detail on the specimen.  I liked that she started with the drawing, used both color and black and white images on the same page, and let the process evolve. Further, I liked using two facing pages as a way to compare different ferns. 3. This was alluded to, but I sometimes will leave a facing page blank for add in the research info I've found in answer to a question.

Oct. 13, 2019 1. What inspired you to begin nature journaling? I have done various types of "journaling" over the years, starting with the waterproof notebooks we used during my geology field camps in college. More recently I've kept a bird and herp journal/checklist on trips to SE Arizona, and I attempted to keep a travel journal on a two week trip to Tokyo and Kyoto (but we did so much and I got so tired that I eventually couldn't keep up!). I also do an above average amount of drawing for and with my students in high school biology and geology, most recently on river macroinvertebrates. We have a natural riparian zone about a half-mile from the school, so with our 90 minute block periods we spend many class periods in the fall observing, measuring, sampling, and data collecting. I think this course will help me expand my journaling skills so I could teach my students to do the same down at the river. 2. Now that you’ve heard from several other journalers about their processes, and had a peek at their journals, which ideas or approaches do you want to try? I recently did the training so I could teach Project Lead the Way engineering courses and the emphasis with engineers is to include drawings and narratives of all ideas, filling up the notebook with information. It's similar to many of the journals seen in the videos. So I'm going to try having a central illustration frame with narratives surrounding and perhaps drawings of details here and there. 3. Do you have a different journaling idea, not mentioned here, that you’d like to share? Engineers have a credo where nothing written ever gets erased. For mistakes in writing or irrelevant passages you put a line through the text so it's still readable. This comes from industry where any idea whatsoever could become important some day and be a million-dollar idea. Not sure if this applies in some way to nature journaling, but I'll be keeping this in mind along the way.

1. I was inspired to take this course for so many reasons. Simply, I love to get out, observe and appreciate nature. With that in mind, I sometimes take my camera to capture different observations. I love the idea of bridging journaling and art together too. I have an appreciation for writing and art, however, I don't embark upon either outlet as much as I should. Nor do I find myself gifted in art or writing. Thus, I  hoping to take all my loves - the outdoors, writing and art and blend them into something beautiful.

I want a journal to more properly remember the beautiful, odd things I see when I'm out and about, even if it's just on my small property. I don't always trust my mind to remember, but notations of any kind can help. A journal could be used as 'the spark' necessary to recreate and solidify that memory. I want to be able to return to it and ,with some assurance, subdue the hesitation and chaos I often feel. Ideas on paper might keep my mind sharper, share ideas I had with others. It might feel like pulling the curtains apart and aid me in seeing more clearly into my own memory. I believe Fuller's class will aid me in helping elementary things I learned years ago in the beginners drawing I accomplished. Learning from other students is something to look forward to here also. Muller's idea of zooming in and squaring details of drawing will be useful. Her interest in shadows and light is something all art students share. Nnuro jr's speed with pen and paint is something I wish I could gain. I'd remind everyone to 'DON'T FORGET to LOOK UP! The clouds are something I learned to watch carefully as a sailplane pilot. And I'd have missed a red-tailed hawk perched on a pole in my backyard if I'd not also been watching the clouds.

1.  I am inspired to nature journal because I noticed I was already keeping a journal with sketches and thoughts.  I bring it with me to work and bring it home every day.  And when I saw the email about this class, the ad image looked similar to my journal I was already keeping, and I was like...."oh!  this is a thing.  nature journaling. drawing and journaling".  It was quite a cool Ah-Ha moment. :) 2.  I am interested in going outside and journaling what I see, and then looking up and learning more about the subject later.   3. I would like to include the symbolism and meaning of the things I see.  So, like, if I see a blue jay, what symbolism does that have?  What inspiring thought can it bring to my day.  What does it mean to me? I'd also like to use any images that really captivate me, and bring them home and maybe paint them on a canvas or make something larger with them so I can display it.  I also like glitter and other materials, so maybe turn a small sketch into some sort of mixed media art.

I am happy to be here and excited to explore the course and sharpen my skills.  I did not have a favorite style of journaling and am grateful to all those who shared theirs.  My time is divided between Nashville, TN and Cape Cod, MA with side trips around the United States most often with the Sierra Club. I am retired, active in conservation education, citizen science and also a life long birder.  I often write poems about the birds and things I see.  I have signed up for this course so I will have a better chance of moving the pictures in my brain to illustrations on paper.

1. I am a beginner and would like to improve my drawing  skills by observing nature. 2. I like the organizing method of date, time, weather, and location. I like how they all observed carefully and  were able to transform these observations into beautiful drawings.  These all seem to take time and patience.

I enjoy drawing, and I love nature!  So I hope to put the two together to create, document and expand my knowledge of the natural world. Plus, this course was a birthday gift from my husband  Lucky me! I spend a lot of time outdoors, and I rarely miss the chance to take in all the beauty that Mother Nature has to offer.  I love to take the time to look, observe, and notice the subtle changes and happenings that occur around the lake, where I am so fortunate to live. I hope to keep a record of the flora and fauna on a regular basis. I plan to  draw first,  use watercolor and ink at times and add interesting information/facts about my subject matter. I also plan to record date, weather and location in my journal. I’m not sure of my format yet.  I’m just going to see how it evolves.

I've kept a nature journal off and on for ~ 20 years and have taught it for the last five, but I've gotten out of the habit of regular journaling, so I thought the course would be a great opportunity to get reinspired and give me ideas for my own teaching. It's so inspiring to look at others' journals, and I loved the variety in the video. I'm inspired to do something I've worked on over the years but have never really nailed—putting in place a consistent journaling style and composing my journal pages so images and words work together to make a harmonious whole.

Hi , I really enjoyed seeing the journals!  I have a question though, if I mark it Complete, will I be able to return to it?   Answering the above questions, I am beginning because I : 1. want to improve my drawing skills with regular practice  and observing nature will be fun for me - I love keeping track of the birds in my yard and at our feeder.  I'm really hoping that I will develop a daily habit  of 1-hour and an ability to draw and paint faster. 2. I will follow their practice of dating, with time, place, time of day and weather and 3. I loved the way they all explained how by the experience of looking at the subject carefully,  questioning a behavior,  and then staying with the subject for  an amount of time because they were drawing it , they saw the answer right in front of their eyes! And now when they look at their journal, the memory of the day comes right back!!! I learned so much from all the artists, they were all so good at describing their experience and practice, I am  so sincerrely  grateful to you all. Eileen McNally aka cherryred

Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac was an early inspiration for me to begin drawing and sketching the wildlife around me. Many classes throughout my education also required a journal to document and take notes in so combining the two has always been appealing. I liked the idea of dedicating pages to months and having little drawings you do fill those pages outside of other specific entries.

I love Liz's style and I'm trying to illustrate a book and need guidance and inspiration.

I have always liked to write and kept travel journals on family trips as a kid. As an adult I've kept an intermittent nature journal, spending my most focused time with it when I'm on vacations or in unusual areas for my work. I enjoy the time spent outside observing and trying to capture what's before me and also the details I'm able to observe through the focused attention drawing requires. The descriptions in my journals have always brought back memories I didn't know I had; my drawings, however crude, have taken me immediately to particular times and places, bringing back how I felt as I drew. I really want to get better at keeping my nature journal--better at capturing in art what's before me, better at using color, better at making time to observe and record. I thought that this class might help me learn and practice these skills in a way that merely reading a book about nature journaling cannot. There were things I liked about all the journals, especially the various ways people used color. Shayna (the first journal) is probably closest to my current style. I'm especially excited to learn about incorporating watercolor into my nature journal!

I'm excited about this course because it will help me be more intentional about spending time in nature and recording my observations and adding reference information. I would love to take a dedicated trip to fill my journal but most likely it will be a collage of many different things including familiar back yard birds  (I would love to capture those Blue Jay flashes!) and new tree identifications such as the willow oak in my neighbors' yard. I'm not very accomplished but shall consider this a "before" image and try hard not to self-edit.

1) The works of Beatrix Potter, John James Audubon, Roger Tory Peterson, Rachel Carson, James Prosek, Clare Walker Leslie and so many others I have encountered over the course of my lifetime are my inspiration for beginning to sketch and journal from nature. I hope through this course to begin to put my own ideas and very limited skills to paper for the first time and I’m very excited and grateful for this opportunity to begin. I previously have not had a clue as to how to begin, especially since I have very limited drawing skills. 2) I really love the artistry in the monthly journal technique, and incorporation of some field notes and details to the subjects in journal entries. All of the journalists’ techniques are unique and inspiring! 3) I don’t have a different idea for journaling yet, but perhaps one will evolve as the course unfolds?    

I love nature art and have always been impressed with people who could do a beautiful sketch in the field. Last year I saw an exhibit of work from a botanical illustration class at the Denver Botanic Garden, and it only increased my desire to learn how to draw and paint from nature. I hope to document the birds at my feeders and the various plants in my yard year round. I'd also like to record things I see on hikes. I also hope this will increase my skill at observing details in nature. I think it will be a relaxing and meditative practice. I like a lot of the ideas from the various journals in the video. I think I'll want to try out different techniques and see what works best for me.

1. I'm inspired to begin nature journaling because I want to make time to slow down and savor nature. I want to use it to express and illustrate my gratitude for the extraordinary and exquisite beauty of life and Earth. I hope journaling will help me deal with my hyper-awareness of, and grief over, global biodiversity loss by revealing opportunities for me to appreciate what is here on earth, for whatever period of time that may be. 2. I think all the journalers have a lot of great ideas. I want to record the location, time, and weather as some of the journalers have done. I also want to include my written observations, and I want to use the approach of taking this opportunity to learn who/what it is that I'm observing and drawing, as some of the journalers have suggested. I like the idea of following up with identifications by scientific and common names, and learning appropriate scientific terminology to provide context for details of my observations. I like the ideas of zooming in to look at close details, and zooming out to look at the bigger picture. The ideas of scheduling regular journaling times are also good--I know that instilling of habits and improving are only likely to come with consistency. 3. I appreciate all the journalers sharing their work--I think you are all very brave to share you work with us. My journaling idea is only that I think that those of us who tend to harbour judgments about ourselves and our budding artistic talent should be kind and compassionate to ourselves, and give ourselves a chance to learn to express ourselves through our art.

I am inspired to try nature journaling because I have recently moved to a beautiful and remote location.  Every time I drive down a familiar road or walk down a nearby path, I see so many new things about that often-observed spot, due to subtle shifts in lighting and season.  I want to capture the many faces of one place. I also am trying to learn to forage from this land, and learn about the characters on this stage -- the plants, animals, and formations surrounding me.  I need to learn to observe carefully to positively identify plants so that I can safely use them, and just so that I can be a better community member here.

I saw the course advertised and thought how wonderful it would be to be able to do that... capture the spirit and essence of things in nature, sit outside and sketch and be pleased with the results, make a record of precious moments and places, get lost in the doing of it... I would also like to be able to paint realistic birds but that might be a separate endeavour in itself. I paint acrylic semi abstract landscapes and that is really fun and satisfying, but the itch to draw - more, better, from life - is calling me. I so enjoyed watching the video with all the different journals. So many more ideas than I had thought of. I like the idea of the boxes and then letting it spill over, and the month at a page. I have a tiny watercolour travel paintbox so I would like to try using ink with that.

1.  I started keeping a sketch journal last year. My goal at that time was just to document my days, but because so much of my time is spent exploring nature and photographing insects, my notebook became more of a nature journal than anything else: I’ve only ever drawn from photographs I’ve taken and I’m hoping to learn new skills to sketch things while I’m observing them. In order to do this I know I’ll need to let go of my fear of messing up. 2.  I also started my journal with the goal of drawing every day but it got overwhelming; I felt pressure to fit it in and then was disappointed in myself when I couldn’t. So I like the idea of setting a more realistic goal of drawing several times throughout the month. At the very least I’d love to have a record of the environment as the seasons change throughout the year. I love the structure of this course, especially the feature of sharing our work with others in the course. I look forward to learning from the instructor but also everyone else here.

I was so pleased to see this course come up.  I signed up for Nature Journalling because I want to spend more time closely observing the nature around me, particularly the birds, but other things/creatures/trees etc I enjoy in my yard and elsewhere. In all of the journals I looked at, I think I liked best that many journalists tried many sketches of the same bird.  I also liked that things are done on a small scale, as opposed to a full sheet of watercolour.  I liked the sketch per day idea but will have to see how that goes.   I'm looking forward to sketching and recording what I see around me.