Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

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Keeping a nature journal can both deepen your connections to the

natural world and help you learn more about it. Neither science
education nor art training is needed—you will develop the skills of
a naturalist and a eld sketch-artist along the way.

Supplemental Class Materials

• METADATA: WEATHER SYMBOLS (Lesson 2)

• METADATA: CLOUD TYPES (Lesson 2)
• LEAF NOMENCLATURE HANDOUT (Lesson 3)
• SKETCHING TIPS (Lesson 3)

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fi

 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

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 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

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 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

You can create your own “cheat sheet” for your journal of cloud types and symbols using the previous two charts:



 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing
and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

Sketching Tips

Some key points (by Roseann Hanson and adapted from Barbara Terkanian, biologist and artist):

1. When drawing something in your journal, leave enough room around it for notes / observations /
measurements.

2. You don’t need to draw everything; refer to book excerpt (next pages) for tips on “framing” and
selectively sketching.

3. Spend considerable time observing your subject: mentally or even out loud say what you are
seeing: “ ve petals, they curve outward, the throat is dark red, the petals are light pink.” Then start
sketching, using one or a mix of the methods in the excerpt (dot-mapping and shapes).

4. Check proportions using the eye-thumb method (see excerpt).

5. Remember you are capturing, not copying. Use gesture sketching—lots of light, messy lines to
scribe your subject. When happy with the result, go back over more darkly with pen or pencil
(noting that pencil will eventually smudge in a journal environment).

6. Volume: add volume to three-dimensional objects using shadows (stipples, lines, values):

Next four pages are excerpted from Nature Journaling for a Wild Life (Natural Selection Press 2020 –
by Roseann Hanson).


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 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

NOT LEARNING TO DRAW

It turns out we’ve been thinking about drawing all wrong, according to design
historian and artist D.B. Dowd. In his book Stick Figures: Drawing as a Human
Practice (Spartan Holiday Books, 2018), Dowd argues that putting a pencil to paper
shouldn’t be about making art at all but about learning.
Our anxiety around drawing starts around puberty, when we begin self-critiquing
our abilities to render a perfect likeness, Dowd says. “The self-consciousness
associated with ‘good’ drawing . . . is mostly to blame,” he said. “If you take a step
back, and define drawing as symbolic mark-making, it’s obvious that all human
beings draw. Diagrams, maps, doodles, smiley faces: These are all drawings!”
At its core, drawing is a problem-solving tool. It fosters close observation, analytical
thinking, patience, even humility. [This sounds a lot like John Muir Laws as well.]
There’s another fundamental reason for using drawing as a learning tool: It can
bring out our better qualities as people. “If practiced in the service of inquiry and
understanding, drawing does enforce modesty,” says Dowd. “You quickly discover
how little you know.”
The observation that’s necessary for drawing is also enriching. “Drawing makes
us slow down, be patient, pay attention,” he says. “Observation itself is respectful.”
In the closing chapter of Stick Figures, Dowd argues that drawing can even make
us better citizens, in the sense that it trains us to wrestle with evidence and challenge
assumptions. “It might seem sort of nutty, but I do think that drawing can be a form
of citizenship,” he says. “Observation, inquiry, and steady effort are good for us.”1
Henceforth we’re going to focus not on learning to draw but on drawing to learn—
another way of collecting data:

1 Visual (using drawing as a study tool)

“No!” you exclaim. “I can’t!” I understand. Putting pencil or pen to paper to

draw a recognizable object is very intimidating. [That’s why we started with
representational figures in Week 2.] I’ve only been adding drawings in a serious way
in my nature journals for five years; I started in around 2009 adding simple stick
figures or representations and colored them with watercolor pencils (at right, top).
In 2015 I bought Laws’ Guide to Nature Drawing, and I signed up for two online
sketching courses that vastly improved my drawing skills and confidence.2

M I N D Y O U R H E A D ! (OR THE VOICES IN IT)

As you take those first steps to draw in your journal, be aware of
the “voices in your head” that tell you it’s no good, that you can’t do
it. Consciously push them aside and keep reminding yourself: “I’m
drawing to learn, not learning to draw. I. Can. Do. This.”
36 @RoseannHanson

 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

It works because our brains are hard-wired to love challenges; literally the more
you push yourself by putting pencil or pen to paper, the more glial cells and
myelin protein are produced in the brain, which makes you remember and
improves your skills.3 So it’s true:

Drawing makes us smarter!

How to start, then?
Let’s first have a discussion on the merits
of pencil versus pen with permanent ink.
I advocate for sketching with pen:
• When dry, pen does not smear,
smudge, or fade in my notebook.
• It’s simple: one tool, period.
• And most importantly: I must commit to my drawing, without the possibility
of erasing, which can damage the paper in my journal.
So if you can brave it and start directly with pen, it will be a little more painful
at first, but your skill level and confidence will grow more quickly. However, do
whatever makes you happy
and just gets you sketching.

IT’S ALL IN THE

GESTURE
There are lots of great
instructional videos and books
to teach art skills (see End
Notes for this chapter4). I’m
not going to assign any of
those practices, but will talk a
little about “gesture sketching.”
This is a type of drawing that
emphasizes “expressive marks,”
which are loose and lively,
though your goal is to get to
an accurate representation.
The more slowly you draw,
the more “static” it looks (and
less alive). Take a look at my
sketches at left. There is no
perfect outline on the finch—
there are lots of swooshes
38 @RoseannHanson

 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

where I’m just “feeling” out his shape. Same with the leaves—they are sketched in
lightly at first, and I go over the shape until I like it, then I will do it a little more
darkly. This is a type of gesture sketching. It’s all a personal opinion, of course, but
I believe the gesture-type, loose sketch is more lively and interesting than a very
perfect rendering. And of course, you really can’t do a perfect drawing in the field—
in nature journaling, it’s about the immediacy.
For our purposes, we’re going to use sketching as a way to study something—
literally stare at it, even talking out loud to describe the shape and margin of a leaf,
how it attaches to the stalk, etc. You do this while sketching, studying, then putting
that part down onto paper, studying again, then putting it onto paper. Before you
know it you will have a pretty darned good plant drawing!

SKETCHING TIPS:
• Art teachers will tell you to “sketch with your whole arm”—that works if you
are working on a big studio easel but is not practical for sitting or standing
holding a small journal. But do hold your pen in a relaxed grip and sketch
by moving your whole forearm when possible and keep your shoulder loose.
Resist a death grip on the pen, scrunching up with your hand curled up on
the page—the cramped tightness will show through in the drawing.
• Proportions are important. Artists use the “thumb measure” trick (below). I
measured the feather across at the widest point (put the pen against it and
mark the measured space from the tip of the pen to the wide point with
thumb tip). Using this, the feather is 5 “measures” long. Do this as a first step,
before dot-mapping (below). These are also covered more on page 57.

5
4
3
2
Measured using my
1
pen and thumb to
mark width.

• Dot mapping is a great way to make a guide for yourself before you jump into
drawing the whole thing. Make tiny dots with your pen until you like the
shape, then “connect the dots” to complete your drawing. Remember to draw
loosely and lively, to keep it from looking traced. The best way to do this is
to use the gesture-sketch approach, running your pen left-to-right (or right-
to-left) over and over along the margins, as you connect the dots, making it
as “sketchy” as possible.
Nature Journaling for a Wild Life 39

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 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

• Try sketching only part of something—say one leaf, really detailed—and the
remainder very lightly, like an out-of-focus picture (see chiltepín, page 38).

• Box it to keep it contained: draw a box or circle around your subject—either

a whole box, and give it a shadow like it’s floating on the page, or draw a
“frame-box” so the object is only partially inside. These tricks not only look
nice on your page, but they make you focus on just one detail and not draw
the whole scene.
• Feeling overwhelmed? That’s okay, it’s certainly intimidating when confronted
with a complex live subject (like the deer above). Try this artist’s trick: Break
your subject down into shapes—is it no longer a scary “OMG I HAVE TO
DRAW A DEER!” It becomes simply: “I am drawing six simple shapes, which
happen to be connected.” I first did a quick dot-map of the outer-most points
of the deer, to get the proportions
right (and checked those using a
quick thumb-measure). Then I
filled in the space with a triangle
for the face, two roundy triangles
for the giant ears (checking
oportions

the proportions because they

seemed huge, which they are!),
Checked pr

and then two ovals for the

body, connected to the head by
a rectangle. This took about 3
minutes, then I added the simple
shading and fur lines to show
texture and shape.

40 @RoseannHanson

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 Nature Journaling: Learn the art of seeing

and recording the world around you

with Roseann Hanson

$5 off code!
As a class student, I’m extending to you
a code for five bucks off my shop,
including supplies and my books Nature
Journaling for a Wild Life and Master of
Field Arts (does not apply to overlanding
and natural history books).

On checkout, please use 5FRIEND

___________________________________________________________________________________
Questions about the content? Please feel free to email roseann@exploringoverland.com
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Roseann Hanson is a naturalist and explorer who has been keeping nature
journals for more than 30 years. She studied journalism and ecology and
evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, and has worked in the American
Southwest, Mexico, and East Africa as a conservationist, naturalist, and writer.
She has authored a dozen natural history and outdoor books, including the
Southern Arizona Nature Almanac and San Pedro River: A Discovery Guide,
both of which include her nature journal data and art. Roseann is a lapidary,
metalsmith, and watercolor artist, and currently is coordinator for the trans-
disciplinary art & science program at the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill,
part of the University of Arizona College of Science. She was named a Fellow of
both the Explorers Club in the U.S. and the Royal Geographical Society in Great
Britain for her conservation and expedition work. Her most recent
book is Master of Field Arts.
http://www.exploringoverland.com/fieldarts

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