What a fantastic week I have had, following along and joining in with the weekly prompts!
The last 3 days had flavour, movement and heart as the prompts, and I felt really inspired by watching the daily youTube video from Bethan and members of the nature journaling community, sharing their ideas and thoughts on each prompt.
Nature Journaling Week – Day 5: Flavour
Day five was an easy theme for me, as I have quite a few vegetables, salads and herbs growing in the garden! It was really fun to capture some of these in the pages of my nature journal, and quite challenging to describe the taste! It has made me look forward to lots more flavours to come, once things like the broad beans, beetroot, fennel bulbs, tomatoes are ready to be harvested! It’s only really the lettuce and herbs I am harvesting now. I will return to this theme once more crops can be harvested!
Nature Journaling Week – Day 6: Movement
Day six ended up being a really busy day for me, and I procrastinated all day about journaling movement, as I had a good idea in my mind regarding what I wanted to sketch – birds moving around in the garden! At various points in the day I sat with a coffee and watched the sparrows at the feeder, the blackbirds and robin hopping around the lawn, as well as the swallows darting around in the sky… but I figured I had all day to capture them, so carried on with other tasks of the day! By the time I had got my children to bed, it was 8:30pm, and I still hadn’t sketched anything for ‘movement’, plus I was tired, and the garden was now seemingly empty of birds!
Thankfully, a blackbird graced me with its presence, and I could grab some hastily observed sketches! So day six had two lessons for me.
1. Don’t procrastinate – sketch whenever you get the opportunity!
2. Sketching movement is HARD, and needs a lot more practice!
Nature Journaling Week – Day 7: Heart
In a flash, we hit the final day of Nature Journaling Week, with the last prompt of ‘heart’. It took me some time watching the prompt video, to come up with an idea of how I wanted to represent heart in nature journaling. My garden is where I do most of my nature journaling, and it has always felt like a haven for me. I love the greenness, the privacy, the sound of the birds, and the wind in the trees. I love how I have facilitated wild areas (probably many people would consider this mess, but I know it is brilliant for wildlife!). I decided a sketch of the garden would be perfect. However, it is a big garden, with lots of areas I wanted to capture, so I came up with a bird’s-eye diagram, to show the space and all the areas in it! I was happy with how it turned out, and will look at incorporating more of these kinds of diagrams into my journal throughout the year!
I have so enjoyed this year’s Nature Journaling Week, and it’s the first time i have managed to keep up with it and join in for the whole week. It has inspired me to keep going with nature journaling my surrounding wildlife, garden, and places I visit over the Summer.
Thank you Bethan, and all the people in the community that helped pull this wonderful week together. I am looking forward to next year already! In the meantime, I plan to be posting a lot more nature journaling sketches here 🙂
