Craig

Went out and visited the cottonwood from the scene I painted in February. Saw a buttercup and a Skwala. Reflected a bit on new life and the original social-distancer, John Muir, my favorite writer in nature.

@Constance That's what I'm trying for more detail, but I wonder if a fine point brush would be better. Still not sure how the detailed pencil lines are supposed to integrate into the watercolor.

Yes, not since childhood have I used watercolors. I'm not finding it too difficult to mix the colors. For my own color palette I chose winter holly leaves, with part green, deep maroon/purple, with some brown parts. They are subtle colors, or colors with subtle differences. Olive, crimson, purple violet, and black seemed to be all I needed to work up four colors. I'm finding that my work with the color sliders in the HLS panel in Lightroom has helped me identify the colors present, especially in photographs. It's surprising sometimes to slide a slider and find no change because that color isn't present. Often it's the subtle shades of yellow that masquerade for green or red.

I found the upside down drawing to be effective and not too difficult. I use the measurement technique a couple of times, but mostly I just concentrated on getting each little shape in the right position and proportion. The abstract shapes on the underside where tough,though.

I think this will help me with observations as a get more comfortable and relaxed with gesture drawing. It's hard with animals that you have never drawn before, but maybe that's the whole point. To draw them you have to observe where their ears are, for example, and the proportions of their body. Definitely helps when you loosen up. I started doing more of that with the bird cam. I noticed, however, that it seemed like it was a cool, damp morning there, and the birds seemed to be a bit lethargic, lucky for me!

I tried out the watercolor with this comparison of two anemone species in my reef tank. Not a huge amount of detail described here on my page, but I think it was a worthwhile comparison. I could get more balance with the numerical data perhaps by making a data table. I

I looked for patterns in the river sediments in gravel bars.

We had a warm morning today out ahead of an arctic front that arrived about 4 pm. I went down to the Clark Fork River and sat about 10 meters from the bank just under the mean high water mark. A few birds were active, like chickadees and magpies. Mergansers raced up and down stream. I spend a lot of time in this area fishing, taking pics, and swimming in summer. Interesting to focus in on the plants in the floodplain that are now dead or dormant. The state of the water and the trees is obvious to me as they change throughout the year. But looking more closely at the low plants along the river was a little tough. Good to try and get important details for later identification.

1. How did you feel about drawing from the photo? What came easily and what was challenging? I think I was able to key in on some of the major shapes present in the bird's form, like the perfect arc from tail to leg, and the arch of the head and forehead. Letting the wing feathers define the side and rump was challenging because there's an outline, but then internal details and lines that define that outline. Which should I do first? Not sure why I compressed everything vertically. 2. Was there anything in the photo that you might not have noticed if you weren’t asked to draw it? Would this make a difference when nature journaling? Definitely how the wing feathers are laying along the flank and make fine little ledges on the rump and back. Also you can really see how the flattened bill wraps around the side of the head and points to the eye. The details of the toes wrapping around the branch also stood out to me.

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.