Capture Summer Workshop

Today my mom and I completed the second of four watercolor nature journaling workshops we are doing this summer!



What a joy to be out in the beautiful Indiana summer enjoying the flowers and wildlife and introducing people to watercolor!

Last Saturday our attendees braved the 94+ degree weather to spend the day at Coxhall Gardens.

Watching people grasp basic watercolor techniques and color mixing is such fun!

Group one had 15 participants and we all huddled in the circle created by a bunch of pine trees.

The best part of the day is seeing all the lovely paintings everyone creates!

Today's workshop moved indoors for the first half of the day as the temperatures began in the high 60's and rain threatened.

The overcast skies created a beautiful contrast of gray and bright green.

This morning we painted bee balm, wild rose, and chicory. I loved seeing everyone's work.

Each sketchbook was unique and beautiful!

After lunch we headed out to the park for our afternoon session.

After a walk around the pond observing the redwing blackbirds and even a snake (!!) we worked on landscape elements.

And before we knew it the workshops were over! There will be another one to look forward to in July and then August!

Nature Journal: Spring Bulbs

We ended our last session of the Winter Nature Journaling class with a focus on spring bulbs. It was certainly one way to brighten up these cold, winter-like March days.

Everyone painted their own nature pages but I also made a Spring Flowering Bulbs coloring poster for each child so they could paint it and take it home to watch and see when each flower first blooms. In case you want to print and color your own, you can download this Spring Flowering Bulbs PDF.

Each week I am fascinated anew with nature! I always think surely this must be the most exciting week. 

 In the adult class we experimented with masking fluid and everyone painted a little snowdrop picture.

We talked about "negative painting"  -- making something light in color "pop" by painting the background a darker color. This worked well for the snowdrops.

A lot of children enjoyed painting the primroses (not bulbs, but definitely spring flowers).

 This student painted a beautiful bulb -- hard to tell from the original!

Such cheery spring pages!

I've got to get some grape hyacinth's planted for next year! Drawing them made me realize I need to have them!

Everyone's style is different and I love to see the variations.

Now we will have a few weeks break before the spring nature hike and drawing classes begin!

Nature Journal: Birds, Nests, and Eggs

Last week we studied birds, nests, and eggs in my nature journaling classes. We focused on three of our most common birds here in central Indiana: the cardinal, redwing blackbird, and robin. 

The redwing blackbird appeared in our area about 3 weeks ago. We all just love his colorful wings. His female counterpart is a speckled brown and I wouldn't really recognize her!

The younger children in the class can often complete up to four drawings in the hour we have! Here is Laura's invention after she had painted the regular birds:

Since birds rarely re-use their nests it was safe for me to take a few nests from our woods for the kids to see in person. It turns out we found two cardinal nests in the woods. Cardinal nests have four specific layers: rough twigs, a leaf mat, grapevine bark, grasses. The nests we had showed these four layers very distinctly and I couldn't believe all the grapevine bark in use!

I always love seeing everyone's different drawings each week. I usually want to frame about 5 of them. By now my walls would be entirely covered.

In the older class we talked specifically about how to paint nests and eggs. It is always wonderful to see people putting things into practice.

I love how 3-D this nest became!

Everyone had fun with the speckled eggs.

A sort of collage page combining a number of elements:

An Egg Is Quiet by Dianna Aston is the book we read aloud in class and then practiced painting eggs from. It is beautifully illustrated in watercolors and was the best guide to bird eggs I could find! I was quite disappointed that bird eggs don't appear in most bird guides. All the books in this series are well worth owning!

And that's it for this week's nature lesson. I can't wait to show you are spring bulb study!

Please note this post contains affiliate links.

Spring Nature Journaling Classes

I am currently signing up students for the Spring Nature Journaling class! We'll be headed outside each week to find out which wildflowers have made their appearance as spring advances through the forest and meadows. After our walk we'll be recording our findings in our nature journals with watercolors, pen, and pencils.

Contact me if you are local and are interested! I have openings for children and adults!

Nature Journal: Conifers

Last week we studied conifers in my nature journaling classes. Conifers are cone-bearing plants with needle-like leaves. 







 We looked specifically at the differences between pines, spruces, and firs. It's so fascinating to learn details like the direction cones grow (up or down), the way needles grow either singly or in clusters, and whether or not the needles have white stripes underneath.

 I love the kids' drawings! It makes me excited when I watch kids grasp an idea, find something to be beautiful, or learn something new about a plant. 

Look at all these lovely pine branches!

And the texture and colors in this Hemlock!

I also love seeing how organized some students are with their pages.

 I'm fascinated watching the way kids uniquely interpret what they see and record it on their page.

I've been scrutinizing conifers all week as I drive around. It's good to have a reason to pay attention to something and notice.

February 30 in 30 Picture 20

We are studying conifers in nature journaling class this week. It's always fascinating to start looking at the details of nature: needle construction, minute stripes underneath needles, suction-like attachments to stems, etc.

These are my journal samples for this week's class:

I have vases of six different conifer branches laid out along the center of the table like strange flower bouquets. It's good to see the differences in person, feel and smell the characteristics of each one.

More daily paintings can be found on the 30 paintings in 30 days website. 

Paint Your Cake...and Eat It Too

The year began with a new venture: teaching a j-term class at Covenant Christian High School. The class, called Paint Your Cake and Eat It Too, combined everything I love: food and nature sketching with watercolors, history, literature, great movies, and plenty of tea and cake. We had nine days and nine artists/authors that we covered.

I couldn't believe how much I loved teaching! Fortunately, every single student in my class wanted to be there and actively participated. I couldn't get enough of the discussion as we wrestled with the crazy childhoods of some of our subjects, the outlandish parents of others, the historic events happening during their lives, and the plot lines of their stories.

We began with Queen Victoria the quintessential Victorian whose life overlapped with all but one of the authors we studied.

We jumped back in time to explore the life and work of Jane Austen and enjoy the breakfast Jane partook of when she visited Stoneleigh Abbey. (Think hot chocolate, coffee, tea, Bath buns, plum cake, and pound cake.)

After our main teaching time we started into the movie of the day (for Jane Austen we watched Pride and Prejudice). The kids painted while we watched which doesn't sound like the best idea for painting but it really worked.

Jane Austen's final home at Chawton:

After Jane Austen we covered the Bronte sisters. That happened to be my favorite day because the discussion was so invigorating as we all tried to make sense of the Brontes' difficult life and their slightly strange stories.

We moved then to Beatrix Potter, who was my favorite author to share about. I found it so eye-opening to discover that many of the kids were unfamiliar with Beatrix Potter and quite a few of the other authors we studied. I started to think of myself as an evangelist for classic literature.

We had an Appley Dapply tea party while we watched Miss Potter and the kids painted the beautiful scenery of the English Lake District.

Of course this made us all want to jump up and fly to England for a literary and painting tour.

Everyone had their own style and I loved seeing their creativity. I was especially pleased that some newbie artists joined our class and were not put off by having to draw for 2.5 hours a day.

The second week began with Louisa May Alcott and Little Women.

There is just so much of interest to discover in learning about these famous authors. And there are so many more works they have written that we don't normally read!

Few students had read Laura Ingalls Wilder or were familiar with the Little House on the Prairie tv series. They sure enjoyed the homemade bread though!

This t-shirt was the best! Especially because this student loves art and wasn't really here just for the food.

We talked about Laura Ingalls Wilder's life in a sod house on the banks of Plum Creek.

The next day we studied L. M. Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables, and of course we had raspberry cordial with our tea!

We finally got around to our male authors when we studied C. S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia.

And we ended our time with J. R. R. Tolkien and a Hobbit feast.

All in all it was a wonderful two weeks. I just love this kind of learning -- where the information is experienced and assimilated through all of the senses. The more ways one can take in information the better the chance of it sticking in the brain! And with the tea party element it's almost as if we time travelled. We can't go back to the past but we can TASTE the past!! I'm still reveling in the memories of this time.

But February is nearly upon us and I'll be starting up a new session of nature journaling classes (contact me if you are nearby and are interested!). Our focus will be on winter skies and palettes, winter birds, winter trees, snow, and winter animals.