Linda

Thanks to everyone for sharing your wonderful journal pages, successes and challenges, and reflections. Thank you Liz for a great learning experience, and your kind and gentle way of guiding us. I will return to these lessons to see what new things have been added. I came across this little poem which described the place I want to be when I am drawing and wanted to share it.

It was wonderful to see we shared so many favorite authors, Mary Oliver, Bernd Heinrich, Terry Tempest Williams, Aldo Leopold to name a few. Thanks to all who mentioned John Muir, I will be revisiting his work. As I spend time in the garden this time of year (October), there is the "should" to  clean up and put the garden to bed,  both vegetables and native plants. As I get older I find this gets less important, no need to disturb the small ecosystems, most of which I am not even aware of. Better to sit and watch, and maybe draw. Thinking of Mary Oliver's poem "Nothing is too Small to be Wondered About", and while watching life happening on the mountain mint, I saw what looked like tiny flowers moving on the leaves. What an amazing discovery for me. The larvae of the Wavy-lined Emerald Moth, which nibbles off pieces of the flower petals it eats and sticks them on it's back for camouflage and if it moves to a different plant (new color), will change the camouflage to match. Indeed there is nothing too small to be wondered about.

I love your painting. The way you applied the watercolor on the bird and branch is wonderful.

This was a great new experience for me (I have been using watercolor pencils). What I noticed was sometimes the color mixed on the palette tray did not turn out as expected on the paper, so I used it as an exercise to try and figure out what I could have added or subtracted to get closer to what I wanted. Also first experience with the water brush.

This exercise took quite awhile for me. After three tries starting with the branch end, I found it worked to start with the negative space between the bird and the branch. I am not sure I ever totally disengaged from the fact it was a bird, but as I moved from shape to shape it became easier to concentrate on just the shapes and their placement. I think my result is pretty good, but some of the proportions aren't right. Enjoyed this once I got past the start.

I totally get the luddite thing, me too. I have figured out how to do it, however there is probably a better, quicker way but this works for me. Take a picture of the page with your Iphone Send it to yourself at your email When I open that email I save the image to desktop when I want to insert the image in this chat box, click on the insert image at top left, a box will show up says something like image here, click on that and your photos from desktop will show up click and drag the photo you want to the box. Once it is in the screen you can adjust size and position of the photo Hope this helps

Listening to the cicadas I was struck with how the rise and fall of the intensity/loudness seemed synchronized among the cicadas in my maple tree. Why and how do they do that? I have learned much about cicadas, but haven't answered that question yet. Still working on it.

Loved your art, and the message so needed in these times.

Hello fellow journal keepers. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts about journaling and some your drawings in this chat box. Although I have kept a nature journal for many years, both during travel and in the backyard, I haven't mastered the art of the quick sketch to capture the essence of a subject. It is so much easier to sit with a plant than with a scurrying beetle or mouse. My goal for this course is to be persistent in skills practice to become a better sketcher and not such a perfectionist.  I am looking forward to joining you on this journey.