I am so enjoying taking part in this year’s International Nature Journaling Week! It has reignited my love of nature journaling, and I love having the daily prompts and inspiration from Bethan and the wonderful Nature Journaling Community, that have come on board to share their nature journaling world with us at the Nature Journaling Week website.
Nature Journaling Week – Day 3: Scent
Day 3’s prompt is ‘Scent’, and I found a great subject easily, the beautiful rose blooming in my garden near my sketch spot. The fragrance has such a classic floral aroma, and the soft pink petals are so plentiful, it is a wonder that the flower can hold itself up! I approached the complicated details by using a continuous, semi blind contour, so that I didn’t get too hung up about every petal and shape. I just wanted to capture the essence of the flower. I then added some watercolour, which doesn’t really do the colour justice, but again, I didn’t want to get too bogged down with matching the colour perfectly.
Also very near to my sit spot on the patio, is my lovely half barrel container herb garden. Crouching down to smell and sketch the herbs, I really noticed how strong their scent is in the warm sunshine – it must help release their oils, perhaps? Anyway, really such yummy smells. I love having these herbs to hand for my cooking. I have Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Bay, Mint and Chives.
Nature Journaling Week – Day 4: Song
This was such a lovely prompt, especially for this time of year, when there are so many birds busy around my garden and the surrounding farm yards. I absolutely love hearing the bubbly chatter from the Goldfinches, they’re one of my favourite birds, so pretty and such sociable characters! They are very elusive, and I rarely get to see them close up, but I often see their flashes of red and yellow whizzing around, and their song is a constant from high up in the tall Ash and Eucalyptus trees.
After sketching the Goldfinch from a reference, I attempted to sketch some of our Summer visitors – the Barn Swallows. Another very bubbly chattering bird – sometimes hard to distinguish between them and the lovely Goldfinch! Much easier to spot though, and very bold – I sometimes get divebombed if I dare walk into a shed or a barn where they have a nest!! Extrememly difficult to capture, but fun to try, and something I am going to try and do more of. I love the gestrual sketches of the swallows, more than the more forced sketch of the Goldfinch from the reference photo!
Nature Journaling Week – Still to come…!
I am hoping to keep going for the full week, and update my blog with 2-3 days of prompts at a time. So watch this space for my next update, which will close out the week with day 5, 6 and 7.
I hope you are all enjoying a lovely day wherever you are and manage to squeeze some sketching into your day 🙂
