Brian

1.) I have dabbled with sketching most of my life. Every summer I try to do something new and about seven years ago I decided I would try to keep a nature journal. It was about the same time that I also got reacquainted with the outdoors. I have spent most of my life sitting in offices staring out at neighboring buildings through windows. I decided to make a concerted effort to return to the outdoors as much as possible. When I was a child I would never go inside. At first I focused mainly on butterflies and a few messy landscapes. In time, however, I shifted my main focus over to birds. Even though I have pushed on for seven years, I am still not overly satisfied with my efforts. A large part of this is because I tend to take photographs when I am in the field rather than sketch. 2.) Holly Faulkner's style is probably most like my own. I tend to catalogue birds or animals I have seen rather than report about a specific outing that I have taken. I do like her style very much, but I would also like to try to tell the stories of trips into the forest the way the other journalers did. I would like to get more focused on creating reports from specific trips. Have done some of this, but oo often I will jot down species I run into in a small notebook to log them into eBird later on. I rely too much (probably) on photography to help me identify birds I see in the field.