[jenrou]

Today I went to an exhibit of Nature Journals or Sketchbooks. They were so pretty and interesting! Birds, plants, building, travel adventures were all in those old sketchbooks. They mostly used black fiber point (fine) pens to sketch, then colored them with colored pencils, watercolors or ink washes. Many did their drawing in pencil and left the pencil showing under the colored washes. I admire anyone who keeps up witheir journals. I've started many, but don't keep up with it. I used the same materials when I did. I haven't painted in some years, but this rekindled my interest, at least for now. I wish I could convey how special they were. Many had framed their pages for hanging.

Recently, I saw a page from a digital journal, and it was interesting. Using photos, doodles, quotes, and journaling digitally was pretty, too. I'm sure some of you do all of this, but I just wanted to tell you about them. This exhibit was at the local Botanical Gardens Library, so you might check yours, if interested.

[Sara Arell]

Sounds wonderful, Jean - my interest in my journals has been renewed the last several months too and I've been doing a little doodling in mine and coloring in with colored pencils. I'm not very artistic and I can't paint, but I'm trying some simple things and using some of my SG supplies in mine to color in. It adds so much to a journal, doesn't it? I'm adding my "art" to some of my journals that I've written in already and have blank pages to doodle on.

If you come up with any fun ideas, be sure and let us know. Thanks for posting this.

[BarbaraC1977]

Some fun tools to work with to make your own Nature Sketchbooks & Journals:

Thao Cosgrove's Life Journals Paper Mini and ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Vintage Folio

Keri Schueller's ScrapSimple Embellishment Templates: Daybooks

and especially Angela Blanchard's Naturalist's Journal Collection Biggie

[MariJ]

Jean, thanks for posting this - it sounds so cool! I am going to check around, I sure would love to see an exhibit like this.