Anna

1. I first kept a nature journal in 2012 as part of a master naturalist course. I did some limited sketching, but focused on photography and specimen collection due to my insecurity with sketching/painting. I am now in a phase of life where I have worked in the conservation field for awhile and have young children and feel that I never stop moving and have been so burnt out that I don't spend as much time outside for pleasure and with no agenda. I want to take time to really observe in a more artistic way, rather than the sterile analytical way that I do for work or in the distracted way that I often spend time outside with my kids or doing work around our property. I also want to create a habit in which I can include my daughters at a young age. 2. I like the approach that they all took with a mix of sketching/painting and writing/descriptions. I like annotated sketches a lot and I liked the idea of using as a way of essentially creating your own field guide. I have never been strong with ferns or wetland vegetation and would love to use nature journaling as a way of strengthening these abilities. I would also love to use it as a way of documenting the species at our home and the surrounding 3-acre forested wetland that we own in rural Maine. Not only creating a sort of species catalog, but also documenting it zoomed out as a habitat throughout the course of a year would be very cool. 3. I would love to start a family nature journal that everyone could use to document their experiences at home in the woods to show different impressions/interpretations/perceptions of the same place.