My Journaling Journey by Susan Shaw, Illinois
Journaling is something I have thought about doing for quite a while. My first journaling workshop was out at our conservation area, in the fall and we took our little watercolor paint trays and pads out to the woods to paint. I have yet to use that watercolor tray again. So, maybe watercolors weren’t my thing. At our Master Naturalist State Conference several years ago one of my breakout sessions was on nature journaling. For this session we used colored pencils and drew some fall leaves. I was much more comfortable with this medium. Did I come home and immediately start journaling, well, no. I thought about it but doing it seemed to be yet another story. I continued to watch nature journaling videos online and picked up some good tips. The tip that really clicked with me and really got me journaling was the idea that you don’t have to fill in the entire page. Draw some different size boxes on your page and work on filling them in with a drawing. That worked for me. I started drawing bird heads. I drew the Bird of the Day from the Cornell Website for an entire month. That was a lot of fun, I learned a lot about the various species and most importantly my drawing skills were improving. I really enjoy seeing the progress I have made. I am branching out by drawing the entire bird, drawing the much more challenging female birds and adding notes and observations. I would like to try my hand at watercolors again so that is a future goal. My journaling time allows me to just “be” and enjoy the quiet and the peace it brings me.