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Nature Study and The "Art" of Drawing, (flying away subjects when trying to draw?)
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Yeah. We did our first nature drawing last week. However, my children were frustrated at their lack of drawing skills. I purchased Keeping A Nature Journal, and showed them the way this artist did her drawings. I thought that was a good idea to give them an idea of what somethig like this looks like, as it is a new idea. After their firls field drawing, I had tears and all about their product!
So, I guess i’m asking, how do you encourage nature notebooks, when they do not +like+ how they draw. Should we be working on drawing skills?
And a thought: Let’s say we are sitting and ovserving nature, we see a beautiful blue jay. A child gets excited and wants to draw int….it flies away. What then? Do you go inside look it up and draw it? I am assuming most times, the bird will not sit still long enought for anyone to draw it. What then?
Along those lines, do you do a quick sketch of something, and then go inside and finish?
I would like to do a journal with them, but I stink at drawing and would probably react like them, disappointed in the product……making me not want to continue?
What do you use to DRAW, in the field? Pencils (color inside)? Someone (Christie, I think) was talking about watercolor something?
We just moved to 20 acres in the woods, and I am hoping to get this thing nailed! 🙂 Since the nature is in the backyard, and I am usually indoors w a baby (hoping to avoid the horrid mosquitoes), is it “OK” to send them out to do their nature notebook? Would that work w Charlotte Mason’s recommendations?
Thanks,
Kelly Wright
I’ll tell you how we do it –
We go outside and notice something (whatever – bird, tree, leaves, flowers, whatever). Then we come inside and at some point (not always immediately, which bugs me because I’m the type of person who likes to do one thing and finish it) we draw it with pencils into our nature journals. My girls ask me to draw theirs because they don’t draw well (neither do I, but apparently, they think I’m better than they are *L*).
I used to get all upset and not want to draw theirs. And then I figured that at least it was being drawn, and at least it wasn’t a coloring page pasted in! So, if they ask me, I draw it.
Then we color it – sometimes coloring pencils, sometimes chalk. Just because that’s what we have. I’ve not experimented with water colors yet. We don’t own any because I don’t know what to buy. I’m waiting for someone to do a blog post and tell me what to buy and how to do it! *L*
If we don’t fnish it at one sitting (the drawing/coloring) I TRY to remember to have them finish it another day. That doesn’t always happen.
While we’re drawing and coloring, I get the field guides and we read about it. I like to copy some facts into my nature journal. I ask my oldest to copy about 3 facts into her nature journal. (She’s going on 10).
Sometimes my 6yo will come to me and tell me what she saw, and I help her look it up and try to encourage her to draw it into her journal – or trace it even. At this point, I’m just hoping to get them to like adding things to their nature journals. So, I keep my own – and if I see something, I add it to mine. Even if I don’t have them do it. I want them to see me joyfully adding to my nature journal.
I tell me children that we draw not to produce art on paper but in our hearts. We draw nature to enhance our ability to notice the finer details of God’s handiwork. It is okay if our artwork looks a lttle less realistic than we had hoped because the artwork is really the tool that trains our eyes to see. Here’s an interesting article: Why you should stop taking pictures on your phone and learn to draw.
The article doesn’t suggest that taking photos is bad, but that we need to stop and actually take a longer look at things be it in real life or photographed: so use your field guides and google searches to capture a nature image to draw. We use field guides to draw from all the time, especially birds.
My children and I like using blank index cards and small half-sized clipboards for our nature drawings. The children tape or glue their work into composition books or slide into small $1 photo books. Index cards are portable, inexpensive, and thick enough for paints and markers. I think it was in A Pocket Full of Pinecones by Karen Andreola where I got my idea to have the children tape down their nature drawings into simple notebooks and stopped trying to find the perfect nature sketchbooks. We use pencils, colored pencils, and dry brush watercolors. Dry brush is simply dabbing into the paint with a dry brush :-).
And, yes, it is okay to send children out to do their own drawings. I am always surprised with how well children see the finer details on their own. How wonderful a 20 acre backyard must be! Like Christopher Robin’s Hundred Acre Wood.
Kelly, our nature journal entries and interest in them increased dramatically when I decided to quit trying to do it outside. We go on long, interesting walks making note of what we see and either take a picture of it, get a sample to bring home, or find it in our guides. When we get home we pull out the journals, the colored pencils (both regular and watercolor), the picture, the item, or the guide and sit at the table in comfort and draw. My girls became MUCH more interested in the journaling aspect after that because they COULD make it look nicer since the table is stable and they have more time to invest without the distractions of bugs, wind and other people.
Our first entries were typical kid drawings, but as we have persevered over the years, they have developed an eye for detail and can re-create things quite well, even my 5yo.
They enjoy it enough now that they will voluntarily bring stuff to me and ask if they can nature journal it. Often we have several things going at once during our nature drawing because they all find things that appeal to them as individuals. It really is fun.
Do what works for you. Just be consistent in your pursuit of nature study. Adjust your plans, but don’t quit! Like a lot of new things, it can be an acquired enjoyment.
We have just recently started nature journaling. We use pencils first then later fill in with colored pencils. If we are drawing plants or a subject that will stay still for a while we draw it right then, but if not we will look it up later and add it to our journal. It can be really hard to draw a butterfly, bird, squirrel, or anything else that moves quickly. After they have drawn I usually just have them journal something, like what sounds they hear, what they see, what the weather is like that day. Last week my youngest son wrote a poem about the different things he saw. That’s what I love so much about the journals is you make them your own! Like Sheraz said, do what works for you. 🙂
1. For things that move quickly we observe and possibly take a picture. We’ll draw that at home from our picture or look it up online and draw from that noting our source. I do like staying in the field and taking the time to draw things there if possible. My little ones end up wandering and looking at other things, while my eldest and I draw for a longer period of time.
2. To improve our drawing skills we used Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes. Brookes does a wonderful job giving children as young as 4 the ability to see specific shapes and draw them. It has given my 5 year old the confidence to draw realistically and enjoy nature journaling more. (She continues to doodle and draw imaginary things as well. Teaching a child to draw realistically does not inhibit their creative drawings.) My eldest daughter (10 and loves art) and I have started watching The Nature Journal Club (John Muir Laws) videos which we highly recommend. They are free and available on youtube. These are more in depth and for instance when drawing insects, he gives a short entomology lesson and then gets into how to draw them, common errors, and how to avoid them, etc.
3. In the field, whether on our property or elsewhere, we always take our sketch books, watercolor field kit (local craft store $10 with coupon) which includes a small watercolor kit and water brush, graphite pencil, small pencil sharpener, and eraser. This is all stored in a small crossbody bag and only used for our nature journals. I’m usually the one to lug the binoculers since we only have one pair right now. Unless it’s close, I just take my phone which has a camera. If I’m close or just with 1 kid I’ll bring my nice camera and tripod.
4. The Handbook for Nature Study blog now has what I’ll call journal toppers. You cut and paste them into your journal. These have been fun to add and the kids seem to enjoy the variety.
Oh these are such helpful suggestions. Thank you so much for sharing these nuggets.
What do you think about just letting them go out to do their own sketches while I stay in with the baby? Or is this supposed to be a joint effort?
They can go out on their own once you are sure that they know the type of work and items you are expecting to see in their books.
I wasn’t watching my younger girls one day and they turned the pages and filled them with drawings of people and other things that I hadn’t planned to see in their special books…you know the type – little doodles in the middle of the page that you wouldn’t keep normally.
@hooahwife, thanks so much for sharing about The Nature Journal Club! I will be checking that out:)
I was just browsing quickly through the Nature Journal Club website, and there is a link to download an entire curriculum (at no cost!) co-written by John Muir Laws entitled, “Opening the World through Journaling: Integrating art, science, and language arts.” The link takes you here, http://www.cnps.org/cnps/education/curriculum/index.php, and you can read more about the curriculum before you download.
Thank you hooahwife for posting about the John Muir Laws information. I have watched several of his youtube videos and have learned a lot. Sue, thanks for passing on your discovery about the free curriculum, I am going to look into that.
We too found nature journals more enjoyable inside. We go for a walk and the kids point out anything they see. I write it down in a small pocket size notebook, sometime we take pictures. Then when we finish our walk we go out for lunch or tea and do our journals. We write a catalog of whatever saw and use nature guides and the internet to find pictures to copy in our journals. It much easier to copy a flat, still picture then a 3D moving object. I hope some day we are good enough to “paint in the field” but not yet.
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