Transcripts
1. Introduction: Summer is here. Longer days, warmer
weather, hikes, gardens, cook outs and fun
awaited in the months ahead. This is the perfect
time to incorporate a nature journal practice
into your outdoor excursions. Hi, my name is Monica stood
all ski and I'm an artist, online teacher and
oracle deck creator living in upstate New York. My work has been featured
and sold internationally and my oracle decks of
kept me busy in my studio over the
last few years. When warmer weather arrives
here in upstate New York, It's time to get
out of the studio. In the last few years, I've found that I seem to
trade one for the other. Either I'm inside my studio working or him outside,
hiking or gardening. I'm making more of an
effort now to combine the things I hold
near and dear and I'm excited to get started
and share with you some of the ways you can incorporate
nature and creativity. In this first-class of
this summer art series, I'll be walking you
through the process of keeping your own
nature journal. This doesn't have to be
a complicated process. In fact, I believe that
keeping it simple, we'll make it a more
sustainable practice. If you've ever wanted to
start a nature journal, this is the place to begin. I'll show you what to
pack for your hikes. The things to note
when you're outside. And we'll be talking
about the supplies you'll need when you're
back in the studio and how to create a
beautiful layout in your journal from the observations
you make on your hike. Once we're back inside, I'll demonstrate a
two-page layout in watercolor that incorporates
the very flower that I picked on my hike. My hope is that once you
complete this class, you'll be inspired to
take your supplies on your next outdoor
adventure and create a nature journaling
practice of your very own.
2. What to bring on a hike: So I am here in my
studio and I wanted to talk a little bit
about what I take with me when I go out on a hike. And some of the things that I've collected while
I'm out on those hikes. And you can see here I've
got a pine cone and I have this really cool rock that has all of these
crystal formation, which I think is Courts. And I have this little nest. Now, the nests I usually
find on the ground, I'm not gonna go
into a tree and pick the nests out because you don't know if they're
being used or not. Wait until the
wind blows them on the ground and then you
can take them home, rescue them and feathers. I find feathers everywhere I go. I had this butterfly and it was a whole butterfly and the wind knocked it onto
the floor of my studio. I had the window
open and my puppy thought it would be a
good idea to dissect it. But I managed to
salvage the wings, So it kept the wings. And these all make really great, great things that
you can sketch from. It's nice to be able to have the actual object
in front of you as opposed to drawing
from a photograph. So I found this dragonfly. I think I found
this at on a trail. Sometimes I find them at
rest areas where you parked cars hit them and
they're still intact, which is amazing to me. But I mean, look at the
wings are just beautiful. So these are real fines. And then I have these beautiful
feathers that I've found. This is a Bluejay, the other, then I have these
other little sweet feathers. I'm not quite sure where
some of these are. But any feathers
that I find I keep, my whole house is
full of feathers. So this is the fun part
about going out for hikes. The things that you find and the photographs that you take in all of the observations
that you make. And this is where I store all of my stuff when I go
on go on a hike, and I don't typically go out with the intention of sitting somewhere for two
hours and painting. If I choose to do that, I'll usually do it in my backyard and I've
got a table out there. I can sit outside
and grab a flower and sit for a couple of hours and at least
be comfortable. When I go out on a hike, I bring this day pack
with me and I'm able to put a little pouch
that I have right here. And I have this little binder
clip to hold my pages. But I have this little pouch
and this is the sketchbook. I am not going to
bring anything that's heavy or hard to hold. I want to bring something that is easy because
I'm gonna be just capturing moments
and maybe quickly sketching when we're eating
lunch or taking a break. Maybe ten or 15 minutes,
something like that. And I want to have something
that is easy for me to use. Now this paper that's in this sketch book is
meant for dry media. It works okay with watercolor. If you're doing just
little watercolor sketches and you're not using
a lot of water, then it works just fine. Or maybe you just want to
swatch out some colors of your environment and this
works perfect for that. I also have a pencil. This is a black wing pencil. I believe. It's got an eraser on the back. I do have a pencil sharpener
in the bag as well. This is a brush pen. And the nice thing
about brush pens, you can get either a
thin or thick line. So you've got variation
in just one pen. And I have a mechanical
pencil in here as well. Then I have this fun little
watercolor travel palette. And there's my pencil
sharpener and my binder clip. This is something that I found
at Walmart for about $11. And it's perfect to take with
you because it's not heavy, it's small, and it has
a range of colors. And it also has a little mixing palette here
at the bottom. Actually a couple of
areas that you can use. And it has this
little foamy thing to wipe your brush off on, and then it comes
with a water brush. So this is really perfect
for, like I said, swatching out colors and in your environment that
you see or doing a quick kind of a watercolor sketch of your environment or
a tree or a flower, just to kind of grab the essence of what it is
that you're looking at. Not so much creating anything
that's highly rendered. I would save that
for working in my, working in my studio
when I get back. And that's the idea behind
the field sketches, is so that you have a way to record all of your observations when you're out sketching. You'll be able to record
the time and the weather, things that you hear. Use all five senses when
you're out somewhere, hiking, take photographs
and collect items. Don't forget your bug spray. I have bug spray right here. I usually pick a
little smaller bottle. Make yourself as
comfortable as you can. Don't weigh down your pack. If you absolutely need to
bring a chair or a stool, they make foldable
camping stools that you can attach right to
the side of this pack. And the other side of this pack has another
zippered pouch. And I'll flip this over
and show it to you. This zippered pouch holds the water bladder
that has a tube. It's a hydration system and it holds a decent enough
amount of water for the day. And that's pretty much it. So that is my setup for
going out on a hike. I make sure that I've got
my art supplies with me and that I am ready
to collect my items and take photographs and also note all of my observations
when I take a break. So take a look
around your house. You've got and it
doesn't like I said, it doesn't have to
be complicated. It can be very simple. And this bow pouch can not
only go with me on hikes, but I can throw this
in my purse and keep it with me whenever I
want to sketch anything.
3. Supplies in the studio: So here we are and I have some supplies that I
wanted to talk about. I have a couple of
these nature journals or watercolor journals that we'll be using for
our nature journals. And this big one
here is brand new. I just bought this and it has a beautiful
woman named cover. The pages are £90 and they'll accept watercolor as long as you don't
use too much water. So this will be a great way
to annotate everything. I can use pencil, I can use a pen, and I can use
markers, wet media, the pages are thick enough
to handle all of that. Comes with a little bookmark and the pages are
nice and smooth. And it's kinda nice linen cover. And it's also got this elastic band that you can wrap around to
keep the book closed. But what I really
like about it is this pouch that's in the back. So you can keep notes. You can collect some leaves or other plant matter
and just tuck it in this pocket back here to
keep it nice and safe. So it wouldn't necessarily
bring this out with me to sit on a hike
because it's too heavy. It would be great to take traveling if I were going
to work in a hotel, let's say in the evening, it would packed nicely
in the suitcase because it's got a hard back cover
to protect the pages. So like I said, I wouldn't necessarily put
this in a hiking pack, but it is a beautiful
journal and it is 8.5 by 8.5 square. So this is something
that I'll be using a lot in the near future. And I'll put the link to this
in the description also. So if you're interested in it, you can purchase one as well. Here I have something
very similar. It is it's going to Lynn cover, it's 5.5 inches square. The biggest difference
between this and the larger one is the
paper that's in it. So this is a £140
watercolor paper. So it will accept media that it's going to
accept a lot more water. So it'll it'll take
everything pretty much. And it's got the same type of little storage
pocket in the back, which is handy and it also has the elastic band
to keep it closed. And it's got a little
bookmark in there too. So here is the watercolors
set. You'll see BTUs. And this was just an empty
palette that I bought. And I took my
Daniel Smith colors and my tube watercolors and filled the empty wells with the paints that I wanted
and I just let them dry. And you have your
own custom palette. So you'll see I've got a couple
of empty spaces in there too that are just waiting
for the next colors. But you don't need anything. There's extensive
and I certainly wouldn't take this on a hike. This would be the palette that I use when
I'm in my studio. And next, this is the little
pouch that I take with me. I throw it in my
backpack and I have this little travel flip
out watercolor palette. And we'll talk a little
bit about that when we're talking about
packing for a hike. And I've also got some other watercolor palettes
that I absolutely love. This is from Metro lab. And I liked this palette a lot because they are porcelain. It's separated by these
little felt pads. And it's just really
a great travel kit. So if you're sitting
on the plane or even if you're out for a
hike, you could take this. It's very small and you can fill this
with a ton of colors. Then you swatch it out on the little palette card
that comes with it. It's a little
tricky to get those paints in there from too. But once they're in there and dried the last you
for a long time. And it all just fits nicely
back into this round tin. And it's got a really
secure lids so there's no chance
of it coming open. But that's a go-to pellet that I love to use even
when I'm in my studio. So we have a couple of
different pens here. Both of these create fine lines. You'll need a pencil
to sketch as well. And you can really just
choose any type of fine line pen or a brush marker works really
great too for varied lines. And then here I have
some Posca markers. These are paint markers and I liked them because
they're opaque, especially this white one. It's super fine tip. It's a 0.7 millimeter. And it's the kind of
pen that you have to pump the tip to
dispense the paint. So I have that in both
white and yellow. And you'll need a
watercolor brush and some water and paper towels. And I think that is really about everything that you're going
to need for this class.
4. Design Tips: In this section,
I'd like to talk a little bit about layout. And what I mean by that
is having an idea of where you want to take your nature journal piece that you're getting
ready to create. And I know that a lot of people, when they open a
brand new journal and they have the blank
page looking back at them. It can be intimidating and sometimes paralysis
sets in and you're not sure exactly where
to go or how to start. And there are so many beautiful journals that we see out there, especially on Pinterest, which is why I have
this pulled up. I'm going to show
you how you can research some ideas and then use the sketch books that you
see online as inspiration. Not copying but inspiration. So you can work in a
couple of different ways. Let's say that you're
not going to bother with pre laying out your design. So I'm going to draw
a thumbnail here, and this will be a
two-page spread. So you can work in
an organic manner, meaning you can just start drawing out your
elements as you want. So let's say that one day
maybe I draw a landscape here. And then I add a little animal
here that I've sketched. And maybe the next time
I come back to it, I want to add a
flower over here. And maybe I add another
animal element here. So you can do it piecemeal like this and
that's absolutely fine. You have to do what
works for you and what feels the best. You can go back in and fill in your negative space with things like your date and some text. You can do poems and quotes and just fill in the negative,
the negative space. Maybe you can add
some swatches on the side and would be
the same thing here. Maybe you can add some text
that follows the curve of the flower and some
more text here. The idea is to fill in these negative spaces so that you have something
that looks fairly unified. And you can add
another title here. And you can just keep
building on your page without any rhyme or reason
just as you go. Now, if you would prefer to go into your journal
with a plan. And I think that a plan, especially when you have
a brand new journal or you're maybe a little bit
intimidated by that page. Having a plan is the first
way to break through that. So do a little bit of research. And I'll show you here
on Pinterest some of the nature journals
that I have pinned. And I use these for inspiration
as far as layout goes. I'm not copying
anybody else's work, but these are a great way
to get ideas about what to incorporate into
your own journal and how you can take these ideas
and make them your own. So let's take this
first one here. I really love. Nancy, did you have to
ask yourself really, what do I love about this? I love the fact that this
plant is taking up two pages. It goes all the way
across the page. Maybe I want to do
mine at the bottom and I can lay the plant out all the way across the
page like this. And then she's got the
breakdown of the plant here. What I like about what
she's done is she's added some shading around it to make it pop off the
page a little bit. So maybe I can add a little
bit of a breakdown here. If that's even what I wanna do. And I would put a note to
myself that says shadow. And the rest of it is
pretty much just text. She does have some
swatches here. I prefer my swatching to
be a little bit bigger. So I would add in maybe my
swatches here on the bottom. And then I would put some text here that followed
the curve of the flower. And this would just help
to unify this whole piece. And the rest of it, I
could fill in with text. Creating thumbnails like this is a great way to keep your
layout ideas handy. So I can rip this page
out and stick it in one of those pockets in the back of my journals so that
if I feel stuck ever, I can go and look at some
of these layout ideas. And this is something you can do while you're watching
TV at night. You know, just kind of browse Pinterest and make little
notes to yourself. I really like this idea. And what I like about it
is that it's very simple in its layout and it's
a one-page layout. And so all of the elements really are going
and a half circle. And then we have a
title and some text. And this is a poem. And you don't always
have to annotate what's the scientific
or what you observe. If you feel like adding
a quote or a poem, poem to your journal,
it's your journal. You can do exactly
anything that you want. So you can add a date here. But these would be the
the actual elements. I really love this too. And what I like about it is that the sketching of the flower from different angles or the
background for the painting. And again, it's a
very simple spread. So like I was saying before, you can fill up front and back a page with little
thumbnail sketch ideas for two-page and
one-page spreads. So I would just very lightly
do something like this. And then we have this
goes right off the page. I would just make
little notes to myself that this is a sketch. And this is a sketch. This is painted. So that when I'm looking at
this in a week from now, I know what I was
talking about and then I can you can add in
some texts like that. So this is what I would do. Just browse around
and see what you can find and create your own
little cheat sheet, really. Some other things that
you can think about our composition as far as
the rules of design go, which include unity and
rhythm, pattern, repetition, balance, contrast, which, that's an
entirely separate class. But if you are familiar with these ideas and these concepts, it will make your pages
a lot more successful. And it's not something
that you have to go and spend a lot
of time studying. I think if you do
your research and you look at other layouts, you'll get the idea. And I have this book here, and I just wanted to
show you this as, this book is incredibly old. But back when I was
in graphic design, which seems like a lifetime ago. These are the little books
that we used and this is a great way to research layouts. You can google
graphic design layout and you'll get ideas like this. Even if you just look at
layouts and magazines, how they purposely lay out their focal
points against text. So this is another
tool you can use. If you have books like
this or just thumb through a magazine
and take note of how the pages are laid out or Google it and make some
more thumbnails. You can also create
groupings to, I've got a separate
journal here. Groupings of things
that go together. I think that's a really easy way to start a nature journal. And I have some feathers here. So you have a lot of
different options. I can make note of that. In my I could just do grouping just so that I can remember. And something else
that you should know is the rule of thirds. If you don't know this. This is just something
every artists should know. It's about placing your
focal point on a page. So if you break your
page into thirds, both vertically
and horizontally, wherever these lines intersect, It's the rule of thirds. You want to pick
one of these places to place your focal point. And you never typically want to place your focal
point dead center. It's just not
interesting to the eye and you can do more
research on this. But again, you can
annotate this and your thumbnails and
I'm going to make a copy of this and included. So if you want to print it out, you can stick that in the back
of your nature journal as just a little start and then you can add
your own as you go. I hope this helps
and I hope it helps you open up that page and not be concerned that it's
completely white and have an idea of where you're going with the roadmaps
that you've created. So with that being said, let's go ahead and get
started with our painting.
5. Painting the landscape: So here I'm starting
my page by laying out just a really simple
and quick sketch, giving myself a little
bit of a roadmap as I start my painting. And I'm at this point just confining my sketch
to the left side. And you can see the
reference photo in the top left corner there
that I'm working from. And like I said, this
is nothing detailed. This is just a rough layout of the landscape from that day. And I'll go back in and
erase some of the lines to that I have intersecting
through the trees. Now I've got my watercolor
palette out and I am making, mixing up a little
bit of phthalo blue and I'm making a
real watery puddle. And I'm just beginning
to lay in the sky. And I'm painting
around those trees so that I can keep those fairly clean until I paint in the
local color of the trees. I am going a little bit
over the tree line, which doesn't really matter
because I'll be adding in some green and it will
cover up that light blue. I've got a paper towel and I am soaking up some of the blue
and leaving some areas that are lighter in
color for indications of clouds mixing up some colors
to drop into the river area. And you'll see I'm
adding some green, which are the colors
for the reflection. And I'll also be pulling out a little bit of the color
with a paper towel. And those are those
light reflected areas. And here I'm dropping
a little bit of blue. And you can see it's
a little bit bluer towards the shoreline
where I'm sitting. And I'm wiping out that
edge just to keep it soft. So I don't have a
hard a hard line right there where
the river ends. Now I have a dry brush and I'm going in and
lifting out some of the paint to indicate those lighter areas and
the water that I'm seeing here, I'm just
softening up the edge, trying to get the
pencil line back the, the form of the rocks
that I'm seeing. And now I'm mixing
up a little bit of a warmer color,
a warmer green. And this will be the
treeline that you'll see, which is really beautiful,
warm, sunny, green. And I'm just dropping this in. This is wet on dry. And I'm just loosely following the contour
of the tree line. And I'm leaving some white
edges along the shore just to indicate where the
water and the treeline meet. I'm taking some of that
same green color that I see and dropping it
into the river area. And that area is still
a little bit damp. So it's not it's not going
to dry with a hard edge. And now I'm going back and picking up a darker
value of green. And you can see it's
a little bit cooler in temperature as well. And I'm just dropping those in those areas where I
see darker masses. So when you're painting
something like this, like a tree line, you want
to look at it as a whole. You're not trying to paint
each individual tree. We're painting this
tree line as one mass. And I'm dropping in some other colors that I'm
seeing a little bit of. Like a burnt sienna,
some darker greens. And now I'm just making an indication of some
of these treetops. And you can see I'm
holding my brush perpendicular to the page
to get a nice point. And I'm only doing
this in a couple of areas and make sure that you vary the
height of the trees. You don't want a uniform line of trees going across the page. It keeps it interesting. And I just, I think I
was trying to lift out some of the paint
in the Cloud area. And I'm taking a little bit of a darker mix of that phthalo blue just has less water in it. And I'm adding some
darker blue along the top just to add a little bit more
contrast into the sky. There, I'm just softening a
little bit of the edge of the tree line that I
just painted and lifting out some of the
lighter areas as well. Here I'm mixing up some
Payne's blue-gray. I'll be painting the rocks and I think he makes up a
little bit of blue-gray. And I think there's some
green in my palette still. So you'll see it's
just a very kind of a neutral gray green color. And I'm throwing in a little bit of that Indian thrown blue. And I'm just doing a loose
swash over the whole ROC area. And that's what I
like about working in these nature journals. It can be anything
that you want. You can practice
working a little bit looser in your watercolor. There's a freshness to it, an energy to a loose
painting that I really love. And this is the perfect
place to practice that. Here I just dropped in a little bit of green
for the background. You can see I'm not
adding in all of those trees in the background. It's just like one dark mass. And I really like the vibrancy of the
color in this painting, so I don't wanna do that. And that's something
else. Keep in mind. It's your painting, it's
your, it's your world. You can make it
anything that you want. You can eliminate
things, add things. I like to capture the feeling
of the day in my paintings. So that's more important to
me than being super exact. Now I'm just dropping
in a darker value. The treeline is a
little bit drier. And that's just to define the shoreline from the water and give it a
little bit more depth. And I'll be adding in some of those edges of the
limestone that you see. And watercolor always
dries lighter. So I'll have to go
back in and add this again because it
dries it dries too light. I'm just defining some of these areas along the rock edge. Something to keep in mind too. When you're painting off
of a reference photo, nobody's going to see
the reference photo. So they won't have
anything to compare to. So if you get something that's, if you're painting and
it's a little bit off, it really doesn't matter. This is your journal. I just mixed up a little bit of this hematite color and it's a somewhere between
a gradient at Brown. And what I really like about it is it's a granulating color. So when it dries, you have all of these
variations in the paint. And I love using
that color for bark. It adds a lot of texture
to it without even trying. I'm just laying in a wash of this color all the
way down the tree. And I'm not really
interested in values yet. I'll do that when
this layer dries, I'll add in some darker values. And just loosely adding
in some, some branches. And defining the edge with
a little bit more paint. I'm adding a little but of extra paint to indicate
where I need to go. Once the paint is dry? I think the paints a little bit. I think it's more
on the dry side and paints not spreading when
I add in a darker value. And I'm just going
over and adding some, some clusters of leaves. So the branches
aren't super bear. And I just mixed up a
little bit of extra green. And I'm just going back in
now that the treeline has dried and adding in some
of those darker values. Again. You'll see in the
right corner on the bottom of the
reference photo, there are some leaves
from another small Bush, and I'm just loosely
adding those in and just making an
indication of them. And also adding in the
greenery around the rocks and the flowers. This is the golden
record that I picked. And it was growing
all over the shore. So that's what I wanted
to capture and went on loosely add those in and also go back into some of
those cracks that I see and adding a darker value. So it defines the rock
edge a little bit more. And there I'm just dropping
in a little bit of yellow. That's the nice thing
about watercolor too, is that while you're waiting for one part of your
painting to dry, you can work on something else. So this painting has dried
and I stepped away from it. And when I came back, I decided that it
would look better if I brought the landscape
over onto the other page. It would have a lot
more continuity to it. It would look like it was
a part of this spread, just not two separate pages. So I'm using the same colors
that I used in the river and dragging those out
onto the next page over. And I'm doing the same
thing with the treeline. And I'm keeping
this really loose. It's not gonna be as
detailed as the other side. And it really won't matter. My biggest concern
was keeping that edge wet so that I could plot it up so it will dry a soft edge. I didn't want to
have a hard line. I didn't want the
painting to abruptly end. And you can always
dampen your brush and scrub out some of that edge and then brought it up
with a paper towel. Here, I'm just adding
in the same colors that I used on the other side. I'm trying to get it to look like I did this all
at the same time. And these are just really
opportunities to learn. If you think you made
a mistake, it's not. You can always go back
and fix it or add to it. And that's one of the
things that I love so much about painting and art. And it's a lot of
problem-solving. And you're better for it. If you push through and
come out the other side. Here, I'm just adding in a
darker value to the trees. Now that the trees are dry. And I'm taking the, the point of this brush
and I'm just creating some texture in the trees from the lines that
I see in the bark. And I'm adding a
few more branches, darkening those up a little bit. And the tree is actually sitting right on a
piece of limestone. So I was trying
to make sure that I annotated that by
darkening up that rock. I'm just adding some more value to those rocks and I splattered a little bit of
paint for texture. And here I'm going over the edge of the
shoreline and trying to add a little bit
of a varied edge because it felt like it
was too straight to me. So now I'm just grabbing a little bit more of a
darker green and adding in those values that I see so that we can make
this unified on both pages.
6. Painting flowers: So here we are in
the journal again and I am over on
the second page. And I'm just making
some light marks here to annotate where I
want to put everything. So I'll be putting the title in that rectangle at the top, and I'll be also
sketching the flower. And you can see right here, I had the idea of sketching out like this bunch of
flowers that I came across. And I wanted to add that in. So you'll see I'm
sketching it here and then I'm gonna go back and
erase the whole thing. So I just decided to add that in kind of free hand really
loosely with my watercolors. So I got rid of the whole thing. And now I'm just I'm
just going back in. And I'm adding in an extra little circle to denote the center of the flower. And then I'm just
sketching the petals and the inside part
of the flower. And I'm working from one of the reference photos that I
took while I was out there. And I'm just trying to
note everything that I'm, that I'm seeing with the pedal. Taking the fact that the top of the petal is a little
bit more rounded and where parts of it fall into shadow and the veining
in the petals. I'm trying to pay attention to all of that as I'm sketching. The reason that I made
that outer ring and an inner ring was to get the proportion correct from the center of the flower to
the length of the petals. I'm trying to observe just
how these petals grow, how some of them
are overlapping. And it's not a completely
symmetrical flower. Here. I'm just
adjusting the length of the petals and adding in some
of the veining that I see. I'll go back in and add
in some watercolor. So I'm just lightening up
the marks that I made and going into the center and adding the darker color
that I see around those inner parts of the flower. And yellow is a little
bit tricky to work with when you're
adding in shadows. When you add in a shadow on yellow can either push
towards a green or a brown. And you know that if you
add blue on top of yellow, you get green and that's
not really a shadow colors. So it can be a
little bit tricky. But this is all just
a learning process. And I am going in right
now with a, a warm yellow. I think this is my Aussie gold. And I'm just putting in, dropping in some centers where I want the
flowers to live. Here. I'm taking some of my
lemon yellow and just kind of pulling these petals out from the center
and back in again, trying to annotate that
they have a rounded top. I'm not being too
careful as you can see. This is about creating a loose representation
of these flowers. If you make a
mistake like I did, the leaves, just the pedals
got kinda bunched together. You can always take your paper
towel and dab it back out. Now, yellow is typically a
staining color on your paper. But if you catch
it quickly enough, you can get most of it up. And you can see that not
all of the yellow lifted, which is fine with me because
I knew that I would go back in and add in some
more yellow anyway. So I'm going back in
and I'm extending the area of where I want some of these flowers just to add
a little bit of variety. So they're not all
clumped together. Here I'm adding a little bit of lemon yellow wash to
the center flower. The shadow that I put in
with the OSCE goal dried. So I just wanted to lay a light wash of yellow
across the top of that. Now I'm picking up some of the green and I'm going
to start adding in some of that mossy color that I see these
flowers growing out of. And I'll start with this
initial wash of green. And then I'll go back and add in darker areas to create
a little bit of depth. Here I'm going to
use my brush to create some leaf shapes. And I'm just doing
this randomly. I'm not really paying a
whole lot of attention to my reference
photo at this point. I kinda like the wild nature of these flowers and how they
grow in these clumps. And I just wanted this
kind of wild looking patch of flowers laying
in those leaves. And then you'll see that all
start to pull some stems. I'm just being very
careful not to overlap. And if you do do
that, if you go over, just take your paper towel and blot it up and then go back in. And I am using a smaller
brush at this point, this is a number four round. And you'll see how this all comes together at the very end. Sometimes when we paint, we get to a point which is what we like to call
the ugly stage. And we have a tendency not
to push past that point. We look at it and
get discouraged and then either throw it away
or don't go back to it. Well, if you do
get to that point, I encourage you keep going. And I guarantee the
more that you add, the more elements that you add, and the more you
build on a piece, the better it will get. Even if you have to
step away from it for a couple of days and
come back with a fresh eye. I guarantee you that
you'll be able to see the beauty in
what you've created. Now here is where I'm
going back in with some of this dark sap green and adding in some darker areas to give it a little
bit more depth. Now here's the tricky part
that I told you about it. I was trying to add a little
bit of a shadow to these, these petals without pushing
them over to a green color. And it's, it can be
a little bit tricky with with yellow flowers. I should have just gone with
a golden or a yellow ocher, a deeper yellow color. I think that's when I end up
doing towards the end here. I'm adding in a
little bit more if that Aussie golden to
the center as well. Then I'm just adding in some really quick details
into these leaves. And the sepal on
this little bud. And darkening up some
of the stem areas. And you'll see what
you need to darken up when everything dries. And you can have those
stems come forward by making them darker and leaving some lighter
colored stems. And they'll appear to be the stems and the leaves
that are in the background. Here. I'm just trying to basically give the
flowers and the stems. Some. I'm trying to ground them into the ground by adding
a darker color at the base so that it doesn't look like they're
floating out of this grass. I think at this point
I'm just kind of going over with a quick wash of water and picking up some of that shadow
color that I didn't like. And then I'm dropping in
some more. I'll see gold. And I'm just adding a couple of extra little flowers
here and there. My hair, I'm going back
in with my lemon yellow and doing a real quick
wash over these puddles. Nothing to labored, just
something very simple. And while that's drying, I'm going into the top and
adding in my lettering. And you'll see I'll
do a block print. And then I'll go back in and kind of flush out each
of these letters. And I do add a little bit of a Sarah at the ends
of these letters. Just to make them a
little bit more fancy. Lettering can be a lot of fun. You can get a lot of great ideas by just visiting
some font websites. It'll give you a good
idea of how to vary the serifs on your
letters or the spacing, or just really the
weight of the letter to. And I'm adding in just
a little flower there. And I'm doing this
all of free hand. I mean, this isn't something that has to be incredibly fussy. This is your journal
and you can clay in this journal and
an experiment with different things that maybe
you typically wouldn't. I'm just adding it
a little bit of a darker wash into the
centers of these petals. And then I'm also adding a little bit
of extra ACI gold around each of those, those round parts in the
center of the flower, just to give it a
little more contrast so you can see the separation. While that's drying,
I'm going to go back in and pick up some of my yellow and start filling
in these letters. And you'll see that I
grab a darker color. I think it's the LLC gold, and I just drop that color in to the bottom half
of each of the letters. Now if you don't like the
pencil lines that you see, you can always take your
kneaded eraser and roll it over the writing or any
other pencil marks too. Lighten the pencil marks because once you go over
it with watercolor, you won't be able to erase it. So just keep that
in mind when you're working if you don't
like the pencil marks, I don't mind them
because this is a nature journal
and this is about sketching and annotating things. So I don't, I don't mind
the depends on like so. So here I'm going back in
and I've got a small number, two, I believe, round brush. And I'm just adding in
some of that veining. And it's really not so
much of a vein as it is. I think just a little bit of a shadow where the pedals are. I would say it was a crease, not so much a Dane. And I was just
trying to indicate that with this little brush. Here, I'm erasing my
lines around the flower. I feel like this flower is a
little bit lost on the page. So I'm going back in with
my mechanical pencil and just defining the shape
of each one of the petals. Here, I am winning
each one of the petals and just adding a little
bit of extra color. So at this point, I have
my little flower that I had picked when I was
painting at the Black River. And I'm just trying to decide where I want to position it. And you can see I've got a piece of washi tape here
and I tape it down. And then a little bit
later that washy tapes can disappear because I
felt like it was too busy. So I'm deciding to swatch
out my colors that I've used in this spread. Swatching colors
is a lot of fun. It's a really great way to
study your environment too. So there you can see I've
already taken the washi tape off and put a clear
piece of tape. And I'm just writing
the date in there. And what I'm gonna
do now is just take my pen into all of those
negative spaces that you see. And I'm just going to
start filling those in. So I'll start by
adding the location. And then I'm going
to block print. And I'm just going to
talk about the day, basically all of
my observations, what the weather was like and, you know, that we had our dog with us and
that kind of thing. So I like to vary my I guess my writing
styles in the journals. So some of it will
be block printing, some of it will be in cursive. Some will be like the
title that you see. Kind of decorative. Just have fun with it. So that was a little
bit about the day. And then I decided to go back in and do a little bit of pen
work around this flower. Just to bring it to
life a little bit. I felt like, again, like it was getting a little bit
lost on the page. And I wanted to add in some of those details that I saw in
the center of the flower. Then I'm going back
in and just adding a little bit of detail
each of those petals. And don't be afraid
to go back in and add some extra things. Sometimes it helps, like I said, to just walk away from it for a bit and then come
back with fresh eyes. So I'm grabbing my
yellow posca pen and I'm adding a few
little bright spots in the middle just to give
it a little bit of extra form and a little
bit in the petals. And then I'm going back in
with a little bit of orange. I could play all day with those, those pens there, a lot of fun. So here I am writing the
Latin name for the flower. That's just something
that I like to know. And I also go in and add the family name for
this flower, Aster ACA. And I also like including
the family that it's in. Because when you start
studying plants and you become more aware of the
family that they're in, Let's say oregano for example. As part of the mint family. You know that when you
plant that in the ground, that the potential
for it to take over your garden is there because you know,
it's the mint family. So I always like to study
my plants a little bit. And I'm going back
in with my fine tip. White Posca marker. And I'm adding those
little glimpse of light that I'm
seeing on the water. And it helps to keep
these lines straight, keep these angles following
the angle of your shoreline. And now I'm going
back in and adding in the uses of this plant as far as their medicinal properties, which is another thing that
I always am curious about. And you can see right above
that I've written in a couple of the common names
for golden rag ward. And now I'm just going
back in and I added a couple of dots
with my posca pen. And she's finished.
7. Wrap Up: Now that you have an
idea of what to pack and you can see how simple
it can be to create outside. I hope you feel
inspired and fill your sketchbook with all
sorts of observations. Don't limit yourself to only taking your sketch
book on a hike, sit in your own
backyard and sketch or create several different
types of nature journals. If you grow a garden,
you can dedicate an entire journal to your
flowers and veggies. Or maybe you love little
winged creatures like I do. And you create one
dedicated to them. Starting in nature
journal practice is really a wonderful way to connect to the
earth we live on. And it also provides us with a greater
understanding of nature. And I think
ultimately ourselves. Also going to include a list of things to include in
your nature journal. You can tuck that
right in the back of your book along with several different ideas for different variations on
your nature journal. Don't forget to invite
your children along. The absolutely love collecting and being a part of this
journaling process. In fact, get them
their own journal. So have a great time
creating outside. And thank you again for
joining me in this class. I'll see you soon for
the next class and this summer art
series, Take care.