MN Master Naturalist Submission: Heather Cummins — Entomologist, Science Educator, Metropolitan State University Community Faculty
The art and habit of nature journaling has grown in popularity over the last few years, but it’s a practice that goes back quite a ways. Naturalists, scientists, and amateurs of all kinds have used forms of art and journaling to engage with and document the world around us all throughout time. A nature journal is simply a record of your observations of nature, typically with some creative element included to help convey the story you’re discovering in your observations.
But, how do you create a nature journal and who can use one? Simply put, a nature journal is yours. When I teach students (of all ages) about nature journaling, perhaps the most important thing I try to help them grasp is that there is no right or wrong way to nature journal. Further, nature journaling is, at its core, a personal experience that is for the journaler to share or not share as they please. That means, a nature journal is for anyone and everyone, and can look like a lot of different things. It might look like a sketch book, a mixed media notebook with sketches and watercolor paintings, poetry, an annotated photo album, video blogs, or even a social media feed!
If a nature journal can look like so many different things, what makes something a nature journal? In my opinion, a nature journal is anything that, to paraphrase E. O. Wilson’s foreword to Clare Walker Leslie’s Keeping a Nature Journal: …Involves the observer directly in what they are observing…expressing whatever seems important, and so, worthy to be conveyed. Put another way, a nature journal is anything that allows you to creatively build connection with nature and meaning of place while taking you on an adventure of discovery.
For folks who are new to nature journaling, I have a simple set of recommendations for materials and prompts adapted from one of my favorite nature journalists John Muir Laws to get you started:
Materials
Start with whatever materials you have on hand (even if it’s just an average pencil and scratch paper!), or grab any of the following simple supplies if you don’t have anything on hand:
A basic sketchbook that will fit in a bag. If you want to play around with pencil, pen, marker, and/or paint of any kind, I recommend starting with a mixed media sketchbook like this one
A good all-purpose sketch pencil like this one and a small hand sharpener
A trusty Pink Pearl eraser
A sturdy ink pen like this one
If you want to add color, you can get a simple set of colored pencils, crayons, or markers
If you want to play around with painting, I’d recommend starting with a small set of half-pan watercolors and a waterbrush (the barrel of the brush holds water so you don’t have to carry an extra container of water with you!):
A basic starter set like this travel palette (which comes with its own mini waterbrush)
A full-size all-purpose waterbrush like this one
It’s useful to bring along a small piece of absorbent rag to clean your brush between colors
Getting Started On the Page
A note on starting a new notebook: Sometimes using the first page of a brand new sketchbook can feel intimidating. So I recommend skipping the first couple pages and then starting your first sketch, that way you can go back to those first pages and do with them what you like once you’ve made some progress in your sketchbook—maybe you want to create a table of contents, or sketch and write a summary of what the pages of the sketchbook hold, it’s up to you!
First, find a place to sit outside. If going outside isn’t an option, try sitting at a window or even watching a nature documentary. Take it all in for a few moments and let yourself be present right where you are—taking in the sights, sounds, smells, and maybe even feeling the things around you.
Add the following quick notes to your sketchbook page to get started: date, time, location, weather, description of the environment.
Now slowly scan the area until something catches your eye and asks you to pause your scanning for a moment. If you need to move closer to the subject, do so as best you can. If it’s something that can safely be picked up for closer examination, go ahead! Look closely.
What do you notice? Maybe you’ve landed on a particularly beautiful or curious leaf. What is its shape, color(s), how does it feel, what plant does it belong to?
Add a rough sketch of the object you are observing to your page—don’t worry about “getting it right”, this should be “quick and dirty”. Think about quickly capturing the general shape of the object right now (we call this a gesture sketch), you can add in more details as you go.
Jot down some of the things you noticed and observed about the object. Don’t worry about making things neat. Try labeling parts of your sketch.
What questions and curiosities come to mind as you continue to observe and engage with your subject? Is it something you’ve seen before? What about its “story”—how did it come to be where you found it, what might have happened to it along the way?
Add in more details to your sketch if you’d like (maybe a few splashes of color if you’re using color), and start adding in your questions and curiosities to the page.
Does your subject remind you of anything? Maybe it’s something you see every year around this time, or maybe it stirs up memories with an old friend or favorite family member.
Add these memories to your page.
From there add anything else you’d like. I really like adding elements of my subject’s natural history—life cycle and phenology information, relevant identification details, etc. It’s one hundred percent ok to add in more detail to your pages once you’re home if you want or need to do some more research on your subject. And, no matter what, remember: your nature journal is just for you. Don’t worry about how your journal might “compare” to someone else’s, don’t stress about doing it “right”, and don’t stress about being inconsistent—you can nature journal every day, every week, month, or even just a few times a year, and that’s perfectly ok, this practice is for you and it will look a bit different for everyone.
I hope you’ll give nature journaling a try and practice observing the world through the simple lens of John Muir Laws’s nature journaling prompts: I notice, I wonder, It reminds me of…
—happy adventuring!