Carol
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1. It took a while to get my confidence up to draw again...especially after seeing the wonderful sketches already posted! I spent quite a bit of time on the head until I felt I got the angle correct. Heads have always been a challenge. The angle, the eye, the position of the beak give the bird its personality and most of my bird drawings look flat. I went back to my John Muir Laws book to get some help. This is one of the better heads I’ve done. Eyes and legs/feet are relatively easy since I spent time in my last class on studies of them. I think the big challenge will be to quicken my sketching pace. This drawing took me a bit of time. 2. It wasn’t so much the bird as the branches and leaves. I might not have paid attention to the lichens and moss or the roughness of the branches. I’d think that in nature journaling we want these kinds of details since they can lead to questions we might not have thought about or lead to identifications we might want. I’m pretty satisfied with the first drawing but expect I’m going to have to learn to speed up a bit since nature doesn’t sit still.
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@Nicole When I taught astronomy, I'd have the kids sketch moon phases over several nights. We started with Galileo's drawings, talked about detail in drawing, practiced with his sketches and photographs, then the kids went out on their own to give it a try. Really got some excellent sketches! The moon is relatively easy to start with- nice and big and bright and it changes nightly. You'll see more detail on some nights (and days) than on others. Earthshine is gorgeous. The moon really challenges your attention to detail. The kids would often remark that the terminus was not a smooth line, but rough and caught the edges of craters. Another journal to try would be during a total solar or luanr eclipse. You can see a solar eclipse evolve just by looking at the shadows cast by the leaves of trees during the event. I would think that would be a fun way to document the event. Lunar eclipses would give you a chance to experiment with reds in your sketches. If you have access to a telescope, star clusters or nebulae would be a great subject. Orion has a few to try, and there's a beautiful Messier object just above the spout of the teapot in Sagittarius (in summer) and in the tail of Scorpius. Lots of neat stuff to try out there! Have fun.
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Hi- Carol from MO here. Retired science teacher. 1. I took a drawing backyard birds course from the Mo Botanical Garden a couple of years ago. We talked about nature journaling in that class. It seemed like a natural next step. Just taken me a while to get back to it. I'm outside a lot in the garden so there's no reason to not try to get back in the habit of daily drawing. I like the idea of a seasonal journal. So I'm going to see what this is like and hopefully pick up some new ideas and habits. 2. I like the quick sketches- for example of birds at the feeder. I'd love to learn how to get that much of a sketch in such a short period of time. The watercolor is also interesting to me. I took a watercolor class last fall and left feeling as though I wasn't sure really how to structure paintings. The small watercolors focused on one idea or aspect seems very manageable. My bird drawing class only used pencil- great way to begin- I experimented with colored pencil, but watercolor may be easier. I also like how the journalists use text to describe what they're drawing, or to describe the surroundings or questions they may have. I'll just have to start and see how the journal evolves. I'm not really sure what I'll try to purposefully incorporate into my journal. 3. One idea- I think I saw it in one of the examples- is to attach small photos of the sketch. I like to take photographs and put slideshows together for my granddaughter with music- basically a journal of an event- I did a metamorphosis of a monarch last year. I've followed bees as they wander around on the flowering plants. Seems like a journal of some kind to me. I'd think that some of the photos I take could be used in some way in the journal periodically. Sometimes I might not have my pencils or notebook, but I usually have a camera even if it's just my phone. It might be useful.
