Get Started in Nature Journaling

1. Introduction: Hello, I'm Helen Kohlberg from journal with purpose, and welcome to my latest Skillshare class. I'm an author, blogger, and online teacher where I love to share my absolute passion for creative journaling. In this class, we're going to be focusing on nature journaling. Getting outside in nature is one of my absolute favorite things to do. It always makes me feel so much better, much calmer, and able to get a fresh perspective on the world or any troubles I have going on. Then when I come back, one of the things I love to do is find ways of bringing some of that experience back into my journal. In this class, I'm going to share five different journal spreads. I'm going to be teaching you some of my favorite tips and techniques for using that inspiration from nature and bringing it into your journal. In the first lesson, we are going to be looking at leaf printing. I'm going to encourage you to collect some leaves either when you are out on a walk or from your garden. I'm going to share with you a really fun way to be able to use those to get a beautiful imprint and forever a reminder in your journal. In the second lesson, we're going to be doing a little stamp carving. In each of the lessons, I am going to talk you through alternatives that you can use if you don't have the same supplies as me. But I know lots of people myself included have a stamp carving kit hidden at the bottom of their stash and it doesn't often get used. I'm going to be carving out a leaf from one of my stamps and using it to create a tree in my journal. Say, if you've just got a leaf stamp, then you'll be absolutely fine using that. In the third lesson, we are going to be dipping into some watercolor and creating some beautiful whimsical flowers. I absolutely adore flowers and I think one of the fun things, when you use them in creative journaling, is you don't need to worry about them being too precise. As long as you've got a loose flower shape and stems and leaves, you are going to know they're flowers and it means you can play around with lots of different beautiful colors. In the fourth lesson, we're going to use some watercolor again, but we're going to create a blossom tree. For the blossom, we are going to be doing some finger-painting. I think there's something so joyous about getting your hands messy and using your fingers to create those little blossoms all over your page. It's a lot of fun and we'll be building it up in lots of different layers and I really hope you are going to create something you absolutely love. Then in the fifth lesson, we are going to be doing a more detailed botanical sketch. I get messages from so many people who feel that they can't draw, but they really love to be able to, and I definitely think you can. There's going to be a free printable for you to access so that you can use that alongside this lesson, we're going to build it up step-by-step until you get a really beautiful peony on your journal page. For the class project, I'll talk to you about it a little bit more later on, but I would love you to share a photo of any of your journal pages. One of my favorite things about being a teacher here, it's been able to see what you get from the class and how you bring that into your journals. Please do share them. I hope you are ready. I really hope you enjoy this and let's get started. 2. Leaf Printing: In this lesson, we're going to do some leaf printing and I highly encourage you to get messy and have fun with this. You're going to need to start off by collecting some leaves. I'm going to talk you through the supplies that we'll be using. This is something which is going to build up in stages so when you start this. If you're not happy with how it's looking, please don't panic. Just have fun and enjoy the lesson. I'm going to start off quickly by sharing with you the tools and supplies I'm going to be using to create this journal spread. The first thing you want to do is gather some leaves and it's really lovely if you could collect some from the floor during a walk, because that will be wonderful to document in your journals knowing that you've used leaves that relate to somewhere special that you've been. Or you can simply collect some from your garden and it doesn't matter which types of leaves you use. I've tried to collect a variety of different shapes and sizes. I'm going to be using an A5 dotted journal, but any journal is fine as long as it will hold up to some paint. I'm going to be using these two acrylic paints. They are Amsterdam by Royal Talens. I'm going to be using olive green light and permanent green deep. I will be using the two green colors but if you are doing this in the autumn, you might decide to pick some other colors like oranges, reds, and yellows. I've got an old saucer, and an old paintbrush. You may well find it handy to have some scrap pieces of paper. I'm going to put these underneath my pages just to make sure that I'm protecting the pages underneath because this is going to get quite messy. Alongside that, some black pen is going to be really handy because we're going to be adding some line work to the leaves once we've printed them. I'm using a staedtler pigment liner and I'm also going to be adding a brush lettered quote later on and I'm using a Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen for this. I'm going to start off making sure that these pages are protected as much as possible and then I'm going to squeeze a little of each color onto my saucer. One thing to be aware of with this is we're not looking for anything close to perfection. The prints are likely to come out in all strange ways, but don't panic about that at all. I think it's part of the charm and also, once the paint is dried, we're going to be doing some more work with that black pen to help turn them into more recognizable leaf shapes. Now, I'm going to start painting onto the back of the leaf and the reason I'm doing that is I'm hoping that I'm going to pick up some of the lines and the veins of the leaf. Again, they very likely won't come through perfectly at all but I don't want you to worry about that as long as we've got the shape. The main thing we're trying to do here is make sure that we're using these leaves and items from nature as inspiration in our journals. It's one of the things I really like to do is anything which takes me back to a special moment and it could be a new shrub that you planted in the garden, you've taken some leaves from or a really lovely walk that you went on. I'm going to do half of this leaf with the dark green and half with the light green. I'm going to wipe off my brush on some kitchen towel. I'm not worried about getting it perfectly cleaned in-between each stage because these paints are going to mix and blend together anyway. Now we've got that layer of paint on. We're going to make our first print and I'm going to add one coming down here in the top left-hand corner. I might not be able to get quite all of the leaves on, but you can play and position them slightly. I'm just going to hold it down and use my fingers to start transferring that paint onto the page and as you'll see in a minute. We definitely will not get a perfect print, but we're going to have a lovely shape to work from. Now I'm going to gently peel that off and there we have that beautiful imprint of the leaf. In fact, I have managed to pick up some of the veins and I've got the little signs there of the stalk coming out of the top and I think that looks just beautiful. Now I'm going to repeat the same process again and I'm going to add it coming off the top right-hand corner but you can definitely play around with where you position them. I'm going to be adding journal writing onto these pages later on, but I'll probably do that off camera, but it's one of the things to bear in mind when you're adding your leaf printing. Is it you've still got some space left to document anything that you want to and say that could be something like a lovely walk that you've been on. Maybe some work that you've done in the garden, or even just one of your favorite plants. I think there's something so lovely about holding things from nature and then using them directly in your journals. It just feels like such a special gift to be able to use these things to create beautiful designs. This time I think I might actually just go for two of the leaves and have one of them slightly coming off the edge of the page. Again, I'm going to lift that up. Brilliant. Again, I can come in and add some more details to that leaf shape later on. The next thing I do is I'm going to swap onto a different leaf. Is this one's got a slightly more rounded shape and I'm going to use this to add some prints at different heights along the bottom of my page. Again, we're going to go through the exact same process here. It's just so simple to do, but I think it gives a really lovely effect. In fact, I actually shared when I first did this in my own journal after a walk read being on. I had so many people asking how I'd created those shapes. I was almost embarrassed to admit how easy it was, but I like the fact that you get this broken up paint, so nothing is looking perfect, but it gives it quite a distinct style. I think it'd be really fun as the seasons change and there's different leaves lying around on the floor to have a lookout for them and use different shapes of leaves and use different paint colors. I'm going to add my first print of this one. If you get some little smears and things come out the side, don't worry at all. Again, as I mentioned, we're going to add some definition to these leaves later on. I'm now going to carry on and do this until I've got leaves all along the bottom of my page. I'm now on my final leaf print and before I move on to the next stage, I'm going to make sure that this paint is completely dry. You could use either a hairdryer or heat tool, something like that, or just leave it overnight. I'm also just going to clean up my wonderfully messy hands. Once you're happy that the paint is completely dry, it's time to start adding some details. I'm going to start with this leaf and I find it easier to turn my page around. We're going to simply start off by tracing the outline of the leaf. One of the reasons I love this method so much is I have so many people say to me that they want to add creative elements to their journal pages but they don't feel they're creative or they don't have any artistic skills. Well, the leaves have already done the hard work for us here. We've got the shapes and we're simply going to trace around where they've left that imprint. In some places, if there's no paint, we're just going to need to slightly imagine where that leaf was. But for the most part, we've got a really, really good outline it to work from here. Adding these black line details really helps those leaves to stand out. I'm just going to finish going round this final leaf shape here. This is also partly why any little smudges and smears of paint don't matter because as soon as you've added your black outline is going to make the shape of the leaf really clear. Now we've got that. I want to start adding some details to the leaves which match in with the shapes that are there. I'm going to draw up that central line and then I'm going to start adding the little veins. If you've been lucky with your prints, you may have a hint of where some of those veins are, but it really doesn't matter at all. I'm just adding these little flaky lines coming up from the center. I find this just so fun to do, but it's also really great way to appreciate nature a little bit more because you're taking time to hold the leaves, study them a little, and look at the markings that they leave on your journal pages. You can see now how well that particular grouping of leaves is standing out on my page. I'm going to do exactly the same thing now with the rest of the leaves. I'm nearly there now with my final leaf. I just love the effect so much, I really hope you do too. I already can't wait to look at the class projects and see which leaf shapes you've picked and what colors of paint. Just so joyous. The final thing I'm going to add to this journal page is a brush lettered quote. As I mentioned, I'm using a Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen with a firm nib. I love to use quotes in my journals and you can find some great ones on Google. But I also recommend setting up something like a Pinterest board. I've got a whole Pinterest board, just inspired to quotes and then I break it down into sections of things like nature quotes, change quotes, anything else, so that when I create my journal pages, I've always got something to turn to. The quote that I picked for these pages is time spent amongst trees is never wasted. If you are interested in learning more about brush lettering, I do also have a class on that here on Skillshare. That now is that journal page all complete. I will add my journal writing and then share some pictures with you so you can see what it would look like once it's all finished. 3. Stamp Carving: In this lesson, we're going to do a little stamp carving together. I think it's such a fun and relaxing way to create something that's really personal for your journals. It can take a little while to do, but I think that's part of the fun of the process and then it's something you're going to be able to use over and over again. [MUSIC] For this lesson, I'm going to be using my A5 dotted journal again and I'm going to be doing some stamp carving. I've got my rubber block here. I've got my stamp carving tool and some extra blades. I'm going to be using a range of different colored ink pads. Any ink pads will be fine for this, I'm thinking of creating an autumnal-looking tree so I'll probably going for some yellows, oranges, and browns. If you don't have anything to carve stamps, then if you've got any leaf stamps already, then that would be perfectly fine. You can also do stamp carving from things like foam blocks as well. I'm going to have some scrap paper for testing out my stamp before I start using it on my page. A brown pen for their trunk of my tree. I'm also going to be added a brush-lettered coat, but this time using a brown brush pen. The very first thing I'm going to do is sketch out a really simple leaf shape onto this rubber block. You could pick any kind of leaf shape you like. I have got some leaf stamps but I thought, it'd be really fun to just add a little bit more of that personal element to my pages by using something that I've created myself. Really simple. You can always just play with the shape a little bit. Now I'm going to start carving around, all around the outside so that I've just got the leaf part raised. [MUSIC] With that carving, I started off with a wide cutting tool to take out most of the outside area and I then used a smaller one just to try and tidy up the leaf shape. But I hardly ever get it right the first time. I would always recommend testing it out first. I'm going to use one of my little ink pads here to start stamping on the leaf. What I'll often find when I do that first stamp is that I pick up some of the ridges and then that gives me an idea of where I need to just come in and tidy up on some of that printing. Was going do a quick stamp on here so I can see really anywhere else that's picked up the brown ink on this stamp is going to need to just be carved down a little bit lower. I think that's looking a little bit better. I'm just going to have another stamp. I find stamp carving so relaxing. I bought this kit years ago and it's something that I don't get out nearly often enough so I thought it'd be great to incorporate it into one of my classes in case you've got something like this lurking in the back of your cupboards too. I'm really happy with that print. It doesn't have to be perfect. None of my journal pages I worry too much about perfection. I try and tidy up a few little bits, but if we get some extra speckles of ink, I'm not going to worry at all. I'm now going to move on to creating the top part of my tree. I'm going to look for is using this leaf stamp to create a somewhat circular top of the tree and I also want to add some leaves at the top and bottom of this page too. Because I didn't want to worry about having to keep cleaning this stamp, I'm going to start off with my lightest color first. I'm going to start off with this little yellow ink pad. But you could definitely do this just in green. That would be fine too. Then just going to start making stamps. Again, I love how that looks. We're going to be covering, layering some of these stamping on top of each other so really don't worry about whether each of the stamps comes out perfectly or not. I'm going to move the stamps so that they're coming around in a circle. You can see I'm picking up some tiny little ridges from this stamp, but not enough for me to worry. I'd left the tool here in case I felt there was something that I did need to get rid of and if you were two words, you could try and clean off some of the bits of ink that are on there or carve them away but I'm really not worried at all. Again, this doesn't have to be a perfect circle. It's just like a really simple top of a tree shape. I'm going to pop one in the middle and then I'm going to use this to add a leaf coming down from this top right-hand corner too. I think I'll add the same with the yellow coming along the bottom. Stamp carving such a quick and easy craft and some people are phenomena at stamp carving and design really intricate designs. I certainly haven't got to that stage, but I just love knowing I've got something hand-drawn and a little bit imperfect on my journal pages. Now that I've got that first round of yellow, I'm just going to keep building up the top shape of this tree, alternating between some of the different colored inks. Once you start coming towards the end of your tray, it's worth just looking for any little gaps that you've got and you can always keep layering your leaves on top of each other. I feel like I'm nearly there now. I just want to fill this little gap in a bit. I added a few hints of green as well because I felt like this was a tree that was on the change just as Autumn's beginning. I'm really happy with that. I think it's a lovely of imperfect color. The next thing I want to do is add a really simple trunk to my tree. Keeping it really easy here. Now I'm simply going to color that in with a brown brush pen. I'm using the Tombow ABT in number 899. Then the very final thing that I'm going to do is add a quote using this Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen onto the top right-hand side of my page. That's it now with my quote added, so just the final thing to do is for me to add my journal writing here. I hope that's helped to give you just another quick fun way of adding some nature-inspired pages to your journals and I'll now share with you how this page looks once all of the writing is added. [MUSIC] 4. Whimsical Flowers Part One: This lesson is all about creating whimsical flower paintings. I find this so much fun. There's no pressure with this type of painting at all. So we're going to create some really loose flower shapes and then add some lovely details over the top. For the composition of this page, I've decided I want mainly whimsical flowers on this side with perhaps a lettered quote at the top and bottom. Then I also want a border of flowers along the top and the bottom of this page. To try and help set out the framework for this page, I'm going to use some skinny washi tape. I'm not going to use much of it. It's because I want to try and get a reasonably flat bottom for where the flowers are going to be over here. So I'm just going to use this tape to outline where that's going to be and then I'm going to do the same up here. So when I paint my border here, I know I need to go roughly up to that line to try and make things level. And then I'm just going to put some tape quickly along the top of this side too. If you don't have any tape, then you could definitely just use a pencil to line it up. But I do quite like the look of the kind of really blunt edges. If I go over the tape slightly, I'll then be able to peel that off. So the next thing I'm going to do is mix up some watercolor paint for my first flower. The paints that I'm using are by Kuretake Gansai Tambi, but absolutely any watercolors will be fine for this. I'm going to start off with this kind of light yellowy shade and a darker brown. You can go for any colors that you want but again, I would pick perhaps a lighter and a darker shade for this. I've got a couple of different size brushes here. So I've got a size four rounded brush from Escoda. I've also got a really fine brush here and this one's actually for painting models, but any brushes you've got will be fine. I just thought if I had a selection here, it might be easier. Then the first thing to do is mix up some of the paint of both of the colors because we're going to want these to run into each other slightly. I'm going to be using mostly this paler shade. So I'm going to mix up more of that with plenty of water, and then I'm just going to mix up a little bit of the darker brown too. Now I'm going to start off by painting three of the same type of flowers. Again, I'm going to imagine that that's running across this page. I don't mind if it goes up slightly, but I want to try and keep most of my flowers within this section. So I'm going to pick up some of that paler paint. I'm going to start off with quite a light touch and bring my brush upwards and then bring it round in a C-shape and again just lighten off on the paintbrush at the end. Now I'm going to add another three petals coming up into the flower. Starting off quite light and pressing down until we've got this lovely cone shape. I'm just going to drop a bit more color into some of the lighter areas. Now, whilst that paint is still wet, I'm going to drop a little bit of that brown along the top of the flower. I'm just going to let it run or wherever it wants to. Now I'm going to do exactly the same thing for the next two flowers. I'm now going to add some of those same flowers up here and some below too. I think I'll probably add another three of these up here and two along the bottom. But please do feel free to play with the format and how you want your pages to look. That's our first flowers now done, and I'm going to make sure that's dry before I add my next flowers. But whilst that's drying, I'm going to mix up my next colors. I think for this one, I might go for deep maroon type red, and possibly pick a little bit of orange to go with it too. For this flower, I'm thinking I'm going to use this color the most. Then I might just drop a little bit of orange into the center of it. I really enjoy doing whimsical type flowers because I think you can't go wrong. They're recognizable as flowers but you're not particularly trying to make them look like any specific flower. We'll be obviously adding the stems and leaves in a little while and then coming back and also adding some detail in pen over the top. I'm going to now just quickly dry off that page to make sure everything is completely dry before I start adding this paint. For these flowers, I'm going to go for something really simple, perhaps how you might have drawn flowers as a child. I'm going to draw just five rounded petals all coming out and then fill in that color. I find these so joyous to paint. I love doing these in all sorts of different colors and sometimes I'll fill nearly a whole journal page just with this type of flower in different colors. Incredibly joyful to me. That for me is really a lot of what creative journaling is all about. It's finding those moments of joy. So now I'm going to pick up some of the orange and see if it's got enough pigment in it to be able to show up in the center of that flower. That looks lovely. If you find when you drop it in that you can't really see it, then I'd add some more pigment and less water to the mix that you're adding in the center. So now I'm going to just keep dotting these all over the place. I like to do it in this order and add the stems at the end because I find that easier than to draw the stems around the flowers that are there. Because I really want the flowers rather than the stems and the leaves to be the bit that stands out on these pages. I'm then going to add some of these flowers onto this page too. This time I think I'll add two at the top and three at the bottom. So I'm nearly there now on that final flower. Again, I'm going to dry all of this off before mixing up my final two pink shades for the flowers. For the final two colors that I'm going to pick, I'm going to go for a turquoise blue and a deeper blue as well. One of the things I really like to do is play around with the colors I use depending on the seasons, so what time of year it is. So you could do something really similar to this using autumnal colors, bright summer colors, or things like, you could go festive if you're in the winter, and just by playing with those colors, you can give it a completely different feel. You can see, this is one of my favorite paints to use. It's running quite low, but this is the one that I want to mix the most up for this flower. Then I'm just going to get some of the deeper blue to drop in the bottom. So I have picked up a different brush for these flowers. Again, this isn't essential at all, but you can see that this brush has got a varying shape and length of the bristles in the brush and I'm going to be flicking some paint outwards. This brush works really well but any kind of brush will be fine. Just make sure you've got one that you're going to keep fairly dry for this. So I want to start off by just painting a blue circle. I'm going to add lots of paint in here. We want to do this while it's still nice and wet, and then we're going to start flicking that paint outwards. Again, then once that's still nice and wet, I'm going to add a little bit of this deeper blue in the center. I think that's so pretty, really nice, and easy to do, and just to add again another really playful splash of color. We are going to do a more detailed, realistic flower study later on in this Skillshare class, but I estimate just doing something whimsical and joyous like this is one of my favorite things to do. Again, I'm going to add some of that deeper blue right in the center. That one's disappeared quite a bit so I'm going to add just a little bit more. I'm not going to add any of these onto the other page, so I'm just going to add my final one down here. I can't wait to see how you've got on with this. They're bound to make me smile. Just love seeing other people's paintings and the different colors that they've chosen. I'm going to give this one final dry off before we come in and add our stems and leaves. 5. Whimsical Flowers Part Two: [MUSIC] I've mixed up three different shades of green paint. If you've only got one green, then you could just use that or you could try mixing in a little yellow or a little blue just to change the color slightly. I'm going to pick one green for each type of flower. I'm going to try and hold my brush as loosely as possible. I'm going to move my hand slightly up the brush because I don't want these to be too controlled or worried about if they're all a little bit flickity, that's fine. I've got my first stem coming up here. Then I'm going to add some leaves coming out. Again, I'm going to start nice and light and then press down. I'm going to do that all the way along the stem. Again, don't worry about anything like perfection here. This is still going to just look so pretty at the end. This is where I'm using my tape a little bit. I'm starting off actually just on the top of the tape and then gently pulling my paint upwards. Again, add some more leaves then add my final stem for this flower. This is where I can then just stop and pick it up and carry on and add some more leaves in. Again, for the same flowers, just add some little stems coming up over here. I might just add a couple of leaves and then do the same along the bottom. Again, I'm going to give that a quick dry off before I move on to the next stems just to make sure I didn't smudge anything. I think for my little pinky flowers, I'm going to go for the darker of the greens. For these, I might just add some little rounded leaves. I just love playing with all these different little shapes. We're going to really bring these flowers to life in a moment by adding some doodling in black pen over the top of them. Now, on to the stems for the three final flowers, I'm picking that remaining shade of green. I think for these I might do more flicky leaf. [MUSIC] We are nearly there. We just need to do a final dry off of our pages. We can add our quote and then the fun doodly details to these flowers. Now that's dry, I'm going to carefully peel away my tape. I've got that lovely straight line along the bottom. I've now got my two places to add my quote and also the space for my journal writing. For my quote, again, I'm going to use my trusty Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen. [MUSIC] I've pitched the really lovely quote, "Where flowers bloom so does hope," by Lady Bird Johnson. Now it's on to adding some fun doodly details. I've picked out my black Staedtler pigment liner with a 01 nib and also a white uni-ball signal gel pen. But anything you've got will be fine for this. I'm going to show you how I'm going to add doodles, but please do feel free to do anything that you like. I'm going to start off with these yellowy flowers by just adding some dots at the top. I already think that's starting to give it a really nice feel to it. I think I might just add some lines coming up from each of the petals. But you really can play with these, make them your own, find this a really relaxing part of the process. I'm just going to carry on and add these to each of the yellow flowers. Then on the leaves for this flower, again, I'm going to draw a line coming out and then add some of the veins. When I'm picking my color palettes along with tying them into the seasons, the other thing I love to do is use colors that I've been inspired by when I've been out walking. Sometimes we go for walks in really beautiful country or states, and I like to look around the gardens there. But even when I'm just walking my dog in the morning around the town, I love having a little nosy in people's front gardens and just looking at the colors there. That can be enough to inspire a whole color palette for one of my next paintings. Definitely keep your eyes open when you're walking around and start to notice which colors you like seeing together and which ones make you happy. You can really use that to inspire the colors you use on your journal pages. [MUSIC] I'm now going to move on to the pinky flowers. I think what I'm going to do is start from the center and flick a long line outwards into each petal, and then just draw some little flicks in between them. Nice and simple. Just adds a little bit of life to these flowers. This is the thing I'll sit and do very happily in the evening on my journal pages. I perhaps might paint some flowers at my desk and then leave it to dry. I might do that at lunchtime and then leave them to dry throughout the day, and then just sit and know I've got a beautiful little canvas to be able to doodle on top of in the evenings. [MUSIC] Then for the leaves, these flowers, I think I'm just going to draw a simple line through each one. [MUSIC] Then for our final flowers, these blue ones, I thought it'd be nice to add a little bit of white. I'm going to draw some little white circles in the center. I really like that contrast between the strength of the darkness of the black and then the little white speckles that we're using on this flower. Then I think on the leaves maybe just a few light white strands. I really hope you've enjoyed this and it's giving you the confidence to play around with your paints, be inspired by the colors you see around you, and then have lots of fun doodling on top. 6. Finger Painting Part One: This lesson is another one where I'm going to encourage you to get messy. We're going to use some watercolor to start the basis of our tree. But then we're going to be dipping our fingers into paint to create the blossoms. I think there's something really nice about going back to perhaps the joy and pleasure we would have had when creating art as a child. Just trusting that everything is going to turn out absolutely fine. Really just enjoy the process of dipping your hands into that pain and connecting with your page. For this lesson, I'm going to be using lots of watercolor again, but I'm also going to be using some gouache for finger-painting. If you don't have gouache, acrylic paint will be absolutely fine for this. We're going to be adding a tree onto this page again, but doing it in a completely different way to last time. All of the blossom will be created using our fingers. I'm going to be using a pencil for sketching the outline of my tree. I've got a really dirty putty rubber here, just for taking off that top layer of pencil to make it faint. But again, that's not essential. I'm going to be using a white gel pen and also a black brush pen to add my quote. To start off with, I'm going to sketch in where I want the trunk of my tree to be. I don't want it to be quite a long trunk. We're going to keep this nice and simple. It's a really lovely technique. Just give it a rounded bottom and then I'm going to sketch in the hill in the background. This was inspired by a beautiful tree that we saw on a walk recently, it is absolutely stunning. I've got these lines in, this is where I'm going to just use my putty rubber to roll it over just so that it's nice and faint. You could try using a normal eraser. But I do find these putty rubbers really useful for this. I still want to see where the lines are, but I don't want to be able to see them once I've added the watercolor. The next thing I'm going to do is mix up some paints. I'm going to start off with two different shades of blue for the sky and two different greens for the grass. We're going to do this in a really simple way. I'm going to just start with the sky and bring that right down to where the grass is going to be. Then bring it up and around the top of the trunk. We're going to be painting the rest of the tree on top of this watercolor background. I've decided to go for a loose edge to my page. But you could definitely use some washi tape or masking tape if you want a really crisp edge. Once that's still wet, I'm going to drop just a few bits of the darker blue in places. I don't want lots, just a little bit of variety in the sky. I'm going to keep doing this right over the top of the page and then give it a really good dry before moving onto the grass. For the grass, I'm going to use exactly the same technique. I've made sure that the deeper green is a bit more pigment here than I used for the dark blue in the sky. That's because I just wanted some really subtle variations in the sky. But I'm quite happy for the drops of green in the grass to offer quite a bit more variation. Just going to bring that down again. I'm still keeping really loose around the edges. Now I'm going to drop some of that darker green in. I'm just letting it run wherever it wants to go. The morning that we did the walk where I saw this particular tree, the sun was shining. It was a beautiful spring morning and it was just in the run-up to Easter and there were children running around because there was an Easter egg hunt on as well. It just this particular tree really caught my eye. I was just so beautiful against the bright blue skies that we had that day. It's one of the things I love to do is then come and represent that in my journals because as soon as I then look at these pages, I just instantly get taken back to that moment. I can hear the children laughing. Just see that beautiful tree. Really lovely way of keeping a visual record of what you've seen. I loved that with the seasons changing when I flip through my journal pages, I can always tell which season I'm in from the colors I've used and which paintings I've been adding. Again, I'm just going to finish off with this all over my page and then give it a really good dry. Before we move on to adding the finger-painted blossoms, I'm going to add some paint to the trunk of my tree. I've mixed up two different brown shades for this. I'm going to cover most of it in this lighter brown. Then I'm going to add a darker strip just to show some shade along the right-hand side. I'm happy with that. We've now got the start of our tree. We're going to do one final dry before we get out either the gouache or acrylic paint. For this next section, I'm going to squeeze some of my gouache onto this old ceramic plate. I'm using the Daler-Rowney gouache in portrait pink. But any pink or even white would look beautiful for this. If you're using white, I would mix in a tiny bit of red so you got a slight pinkish hue to it. Now really simply, we're going to start dipping our finger into this paint and start creating some blossoms on our tree. I tend to not use too much at a time. We're just going to start adding these over the top of the tree. I would suggest starting with them quite condensed in the middle. Then as you move outward, start to think about the shape of your tree and where you might want any separate branches to go. Then they'll tend to get a bit more spaced out as you move towards the outer edge of the tree. This doesn't look too promising at this stage. I completely understand that. But we're going to come back and add some little details, which is really going to bring some beautiful life to this tree. I find this is such a fun exercise to do. I actually did this in a smaller little sketchbook in the first instance. I used some cotton buds for this rather than my finger. That was just because I wanted smaller flowers, just because it was a tiny sketchbook. You can just keep playing around with the shape of the tree, just going to add some more branches and leaves in a moment. I also want to add a few of these blossoms to the ground. I think I might add a couple on my right-hand page too. Just keep dotting all over the ground to show some of those little petals have fallen down. I think I might add just a few up here and a few down the bottom here. I have one final look at that tree again, I might just add a few more in the center. I think I'm pretty happy with how that is looking. I'm going to clean my hands, dry this off. We'll move on to adding some details. 7. Finger Painting Part Two: We're now going to add some branches to our tree and I'm going to use that dark brown watercolor paint that I mixed up earlier. Branches typically are quite thin at the end, so I'm going to use just a light touch, bring it up through here. [MUSIC] Then I'm going to bring it in with a firmer press as we come towards the trunk. You can always go back in and add a little bit more paint along the line you've already formed. I'm going to keep doing this now until we've got all the branches and the rest of that structure in on the tree. It's always nice to bring some little offshoots from the main branches as well, just to make it a little bit more realistic, then obviously we're not going for a completely realistic tree here. But just keep bringing it through the shapes that you've formed. [MUSIC] With lots of nice little branches coming off. [MUSIC] What you want to try and get is so that all of these branches fills in this top area of where your trunk was. [MUSIC] We're going to be adding more details over the top of this. Again, don't worry about it, just go with it, just get some of these branches and the shape into the tree. [MUSIC] I'm really happy with that. That's all we need. Then I'm just going to add some coming down through the blooms that are on this right-hand page as well. Then as you've probably guessed, it is time to dry this off again before moving on to adding some leaves. For the leaves, I've mixed up some more of the light green paint that I used for the grass. I've not added lots of water with this because I want it to stand out quite a lot. I'm just going to be adding some little squiggles up and down where the branches are, anywhere the blossoms are, and start filling in any of the little gaps. Really don't overthink this. I'm not worried about adding proper leaf shapes. We just want a hint of that greenery all over the tree. Just little back and forward movements. Then often when they started to dry, I like to just come and smudge them out just a little bit further. Really imperfect. Just beautiful hints of these green leaves all over the tree. It's going to keep doing that all over until we've really filled in any of these little gaps, and so that none of the blossoms are stranded by themselves. There's those hints of leaves and foliage all around them. [MUSIC] I'm going to finish off by doing exactly the same on the blooms on this page too [MUSIC] Then back with a dryer brush just to smudge them out a little bit. [MUSIC] We're nearly there now with our tree. Once this is dry, I'm just going to go back in with some final details with a gel pen. [MUSIC] We're going to keep these details really nice and simple. Anywhere that you see a bloom, just add some white squiggles over the top. It brings a really lovely sense of light to your page and helps those flowers to stand out just a little bit more. Really quick and easy, you can add some to the leaves as well if you like, once you've looked at the overall composition, if you want a little bit more light in it. I'm adding some to a few of the leaves as I go. It really helps to add a little bit of lighter contrast to those pages. [MUSIC] I'm using a uniball signal white gel pen. This is my favorite white gel pen to use. I do find they clog occasionally, but really not very much, so I usually just have a little bit of paper to the side so that if it starts to clog, I can just scribble with it for a minute on there to get the gel running again. But these are usually pretty reliable pens and show up really nicely. [MUSIC] I'm going to keep doing this now all over the tree and on the petals on the ground and on this page. [MUSIC] I really hope you can see how nice and quick and easy it is just to give a lovely impression of something that you've seen on your walk. Something which can take you straight back to that moment. You don't need to worry about things being perfect. It's just the second I open that page, I know exactly where I was, I remember what the weather was like. Really beautiful way of taking you back there. I'm going to finish off now by adding a quote. I'm going to add it right in the center of this page and again, I'm going to be using my Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen with a firm nib. [MUSIC] That is my quote now added. I really hope you have lots of fun with this, and I can't wait to see how you get on with this lesson in the class project section. [MUSIC] 8. Botanical Drawing Part One: In this final lesson, we're going to be doing some detailed botanical drawings. I really love breaking down what looks like a complex drawing into really small parts. If you look at it and think you can't do it, I'm going to encourage you to have a go. We're going to build it up tiny petal by tiny petal and you're going to be able to find a printable guide to help you with this. In this final lesson, together, we're going to be creating a sketch of a peony. The first thing you might want to do is look at the projects and resources tab and you'll find that I've loaded up this detailed drawing as a PDF so you can print that off and use it at the same time. You will need to be on a web browser to be able to access this. I've picked to different pens. I'm using the Sakura Pigma Micron pen and I've picked a 02 and a 01 nib. However, if you've got any pen, I would say just join in. You can always vary the depth by going over certain lines, or using it really lightly if you want them light. I'm going to be using a pencil. Then at the end to add some extra decoration to my journal pages, I'm going to be using a black stamp pad and also some stamps, but that is entirely optional. The first thing I like to do before I start the sketch is just think about the kind of shapes and the composition. Well, I want this to fall on my page. I'm going to work on my right page for this one. The flower is roughly circular. I'm just going to draw in a big circle here, then we've got this bud coming out the side so I going to draw another smaller circle. Then just give an idea of where this stems going to go and also the one coming up the side. Then roughly where the leaves are going to be. This just gives me a framework to make sure that I'm keeping that composition roughly where I want it on the page. I don't tend to do much detail in pencil at all. I just build all of the petals out until I'm getting somewhere close to the outside of this shape. I'm going to be starting off by using my 02 nib. We're going to start off here by just adding these little petals, whilst they form the center of the flower, with the angle this flower at, this is actually quite up towards the top of the circle that we've drawn. I'm going to be heading for somewhere up hereish, to start with my petals. They're like a wobbly C-shape or horseshoe shape, but they really don't have to be exactly the same as mine. I've got my first little petal there. I'm going to draw two coming out of the side. Then I'm going to draw one coming up over the top. As you can see, mine will not end up exactly the same as on the sketch. So really don't worry about it. You're still going to end up with something. I would hope it's going to be really pleasing. Next, I'm going to move on and add two larger petals underneath and another two on top. I'm just going to carry on and work through these stages and start building all of the petals outwards. I'll leave all of the footage in real time and just pass pop some music on so that if you want to follow the same order of me creating these petals, you can. Great, we've now got those basic flower shape. We've got the petals in there. I've roughly stuck to that circle. It's not exactly the same as this, but don't worry at all. I never get them precisely the same each time, but they're neither is each flower you look at ever going to be exactly the same. Before I move on to adding all of the line details and the shading, I'm going to add in the rest of the shape. We're starting perhaps with the bud and adding the stem and leaves. Great. Now we've got the bud, the leaf, the stem, and the flower in. I'm going to just erase these initial pencil lines we put down as a guide. 9. Botanical Drawing Part Two: The next thing I'm going to do is start adding in the fine liner details. I'm going to move to my 01 and nib for this. If you've just got the one pen then I'd recommend just doing this with really light strokes. I'm now going to start just adding all of these lines to the petals. I try and think now all about the direction the petals are facing in so that I always have some lines coming up from the bottom of each of the petals, and then I add a few extra lines are around the top edge of each petal just to give that hint of shape. Again, I'm going to leave the footage in so you can see me working through at least the first and the last couple of petals. [MUSIC] One thing I do try to do with this is alternate the length of the lines so that you don't just have all long lines, you have a variety of some shorter and longer ones. Even though broken lines can look really good if your pen skips slightly, perhaps leave it just like that. I think that can look really nice. This stage, I think it's one of the most fun because it really starts to bring a little bit of life to this flower. [MUSIC] Now, moving on to that final petal, and hopefully you're already able to see how much more your drawing is coming to life. Now, you've got some shape in those petals. Whilst this takes a little while to do, I find it incredibly relaxing just adding all of these little lines and gradually watching something come to life. I would highly recommend taking a little study of some of your favorite flowers and practice sketching them this way in your journals. You could definitely add lots of color to them at the end if you want. I'm probably going to leave mine just in black and white for this journal page, but yeah, you could definitely add lots of color as well. I'm now going to add some lines to the bud, stem, and leaves in exactly the same way that we have just done with the flower. [MUSIC] Now that's the light line work done, I'm going to go back to my 02 nibs. What I want to start doing is adding some depth and some shading to my flower. You could leave it just like this. I already think it looks beautiful, but I just want to give it a little more depth so that you can see where some of the petals are overlapping the others. Really anywhere where these petals are right next to each other, we want to be adding a little bit more shading, and it's entirely up to you how much you would add here. That's why I tend to do, say at the bottom of this petal is I'm just going to scribble up and down so that I've got that bolder line, and then I might just add a few little more, little extra strokes coming out of the bottom. Again I'm going to do that along the bottom here to give that indication of depth because it's going to sit in behind this petal in front, and again, just adding a few extra lines coming out of it. Again, we've got another bit right down tucked in here, and it just really helps to then show the shape of that flower. I'm going to carry on doing that now for the rest of the flower and adding some extra shading on this bud too. [MUSIC] Now the final thing I'm going to do is just look for any of these places, again, where the petals are next to each other and just try and broaden up those lines a little bit and maybe just strengthen some of the shading around those. This is one of the things I feel that you can almost play with for hours but just keep going until you've got something that you feel you're really happy with. I absolutely love doing this type of drawing. I feel that it really helps you to study and look a little bit more closely at some of your favorite flowers, understand a little bit more about their shape and form, and also each time you do, it will be different. Each one of the flowers that you study, even if they're of the same type, will end up being slightly different. I think I'm really happy with that. It's got a nice, bold look to it. It would look beautiful with something like watercolor over the top of it or pencil or pen. Whatever your chosen medium is, feel free to add some color if you like. I've used lots of color throughout this class, so I thought it'd be quite nice to go with something just black and white. I am thinking of doing a whole class on just doing botanical line drawings. If that is something that you'd be interested in, then let me know in the discussions down below. To finish this journal spread off, I'm now going to add a quote on the left-hand side and then add a little stamping. [MUSIC] I really hope you've enjoyed this lesson, and as always, I'm just going to quickly fill out some writing so you can see what the journal page would look like at the end. [MUSIC] 10. Class Project: Before we finish, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the class project. I would absolutely love you to take a photo of one of your journal pages, even if it's not finished and share it in the class project section. One of my favorite things to do each week is to pop onto Skillshare and see all the different projects that have been loaded onto my classes. I will always provide some feedback on the pages that you share. I think it's really encouraging for other students too because they can see other people who've taken the plunge and given some of these different techniques a go. I'm just so excited to see how you get on. So please do share at least one of your journal pages in the project section. 11. Thank You: Thank you so much for joining me on this Skillshare class. I really hope you've enjoyed it. Nature and journaling are two of my favorite things. I've loved being able to bring them together in this class. I really hope that you've enjoyed it too. Well, thank you again for watching. I look forward to seeing you again really soon in my next class.