Another Robin

or is it one of the fledgling all grown up?

Next week, I will be teaching a “Discover Your Nature Journaling Style" class to a group of Master Naturalists. It's one of my last two requirements to complete my Nature Journaling Teacher Certification. I've been planning the class and so I'm spending more time thinking about and looking closely at nature.

Yesterday, I was relaxing and cooling down and sat watching a Robin in the backyard. It flicked things out of the grass with its beak and would continue searching. I grabbed my binoculars and sketchbook and attempted to capture this Robin's activity.

This is my most difficult aspect of nature journaling. Looking at something through binoculars and then drawing what I remember gets frustrating when I can't see it in my mind's eye. There's no rewind button to look again.

I have worked through this challenge by just drawing over and over again, drawing from photos, tracing, and memorizing shapes, but it still sets off a little fear bell in me.

The things is, I love to draw. And I'm learning to draw like me. No perfectionism. What is perfect anyway? The more I let go of trying to make my work look like someone else's work, the more I fall in love with my own.

The more I sketched, the more I figured out.

This is piece of what I will share in the class next week. My hope is to help nature lovers feel like they can draw, write and track the wonders of nature they love so much.

I'd love to teach this class to more groups in the future.