Nature Journal Notes

​Getting out in harsh weather conditions to do nature journaling can be difficult! Thankfully, there are lots of awesome ways to keep up with nature journaling right from the comfort of our homes. Below are a few ways to continue journaling even when the motivation to get outside is lost. Journal entries written from home create opportunities to spend time practicing skills that we sometimes don’t have time to focus on when journaling out in nature!

​The first activity you can do while journaling from inside is to find anything in your home that is connected to nature. Whether it be a pet, a plant, a fruit, a nut, or even an egg, and start making observations! If the thing you found to observe is something that will stay still, spend some time trying to get as much detail as possible! For instance, if you are observing something like an egg, are you able to capture the texture of the egg? Is it smooth or a little bit bumpy?

​I started to observe my dog, but after a couple of minutes he got up and walked away. This was OK because I was practicing using shapes to help me detail general structure and even though he left, I was able to get kind of a cool outline of him that I think captured his proportions and even his posture and positioning! Sometimes I jump right in to drawing animals as I see them, without taking the time to use shapes as tools for proportions and general body structure. The more I practice this, the more I am realizing it is a great tool for quickly sketching animals whose detail can be added later!

​Another indoor journaling activity is finding a window and sketching what you see outside! Even if you are somewhere that doesn’t have too much wildlife going on outdoors, this is a great exercise for understanding perspective! Roads and buildings can be wonderful ways to practice creating lines that meet at the horizon for capturing perspective properly. This is also a great way to practice using depth and how objects look compared to other objects in a scene. For instance, things that are closer will appear larger than things that are further away.

Dog observations trying to capture shape

Dog observations trying to capture shape

Wildlife window scene...

If your window does offer a scene with wildlife, do your best to document the different types of plants and animals you are seeing! Even though it is the middle of winter, you can look up different kinds of trees, or old photos of the view you are looking at to see if you can figure out what kinds of bare plants you might be documenting. Be sure to keep track of birds and other animals make that appearances!

​The final journaling suggestion is to do a deep dive into a plant, animal, or something in nature that interests you that isn’t found locally. One great way to practice our sketching and coloring skills is to copy from photographs. After picking something that interests you, do as much research as possible to record some of the details of the plant or animals life! You can start by scouring your home for any books that might be helpful, and then, of course, you can turn to the internet for help.

I decided to do a deep dive into the life of an African Lion!

Quick initial sketch of lion body shape

​If you are researching an animal, try to determine where it is native to, what it eats, when it is most active, what type of animal it is, and anything else you feel may be relevant, or that you just want to include! If you are researching a plant, you can look up what type of plant it is, where it is native to, in what weather conditions does it thrive, if anything eats it, and anything else interesting!

Nature journaling from home can be an extremely cozy activity and offers a great break from the normal snow day activities. Be creative in your journaling and definitely don’t feel stuck to follow these guidelines. As always, the best part about our nature journals is that what we put in them and how we make entries is completely up to us!