Journal Entry #14 International Nature Journaling Week

This week I’ve taken time to watch the daily videos on International Nature Journaling Week series. Each day had a theme to apply to nature journaling:

• Words—Emilie Lygren and Rebecca Rolnick
• Pictures—Liz Clayton Fuller, Timothy Joe, and Marina Cerra
• Numbers—Victoria Grape and John Muir Laws
• I Notice—Kirsten Carlson and Amaya Shreeve
• I Wonder—Elizabeth Mills, Marley Peifer, and Amy Kirkbright
• It Reminds Me Of—Jules Woolford and John Muir Laws
• Mindset Matters—Melinda Nakagawa and Bethan Burton

The workshops will give me ideas to work with for years to come, to deepen my journaling and knowledge of nature. There are numerous prompts to help expand your imagination and skills in keeping a nature journal.

Here are a few of the things we learned in the workshops this week:

• Writing nature poems and cultivating your sense of wonder and exploring creativity in the journal.
• How to paint birds with a backyard favorite—the Carolina Wren. Tools and techniques to create nature art with a bumblebee. 
• Find numbers and patterns in nature and how to add them as metadata in your journal. Make an ecological calendar.
• A virtual visit to Antarctica and hands-on exercises to develop your “I notice” skills and build your awareness through your senses.
• A sealife sketchbook workshop and how to unlock your curiosity in your nature journal. And a bonus workshop on how to nature journal when you are living with chronic illness.
• Using stories to explain the natural world around you using folklore, history, science, maps, and literature. Also, how to network the ideas you have in your mind to the page. 
• Mindset—how our attitudes and beliefs shape how we interact with nature, and how to get unstuck from old beliefs. Wrapping it all up, we learned how to nature journal for connection and self-care for healing. 

International Nature Journaling Week is for Everyone

These are powerful workshops that you’ll want to watch several times. And they are full of prompts and skills to enhance your nature journaling. I know I’ll be using them to deepen my own nature journaling. For instance, one thing I’ll be exploring is the ecological calendar.

You can watch the recordings on the International Nature Journaling Week website and there are also resources listed on each of the video pages. Check out all the presenters’ websites as well and show them support for taking the time to share their knowledge with us!