Starts June 23!
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A Year of Wonder
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Starts June 23! ❋ A Year of Wonder ❋
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All Ages Welcome
Online Zoom
Every Monday Starting June 23
3:00-4:00 PM Eastern $52
Nature Sketchbook Club: A Year of Wonder
Nature Sketchbook Club is a year-round online accountability group for anyone who wants to sketch from life for one hour each week. Each session includes three nature-themed visual prompts with the option to draw your own specimen or object from home. Members have the opportunity to post sketches, ask questions, and encourage one another as we build a yearlong habit of observation, creativity, and wonder.
What happens when you spend a year paying attention?
Join me for a yearlong adventure in observation, curiosity, and creativity as we fill our sketchbooks one page at a time.
Inspired by the nature journaling philosophy of John Muir Laws, we'll meet each week to sketch something new, from feathers and flowers to clouds, seeds, insects, mushrooms, tracks, bones, nests, moon phases, and mysterious treasures found along the trail.
Each week we'll practice looking closely, asking questions, making discoveries, and recording our observations with sketches, notes, diagrams, poems, maps, and anything else. Along the way you'll strengthen your drawing skills, deepen your connection to the natural world, improve your memory, extend your attention, and learn to see things with new eyes.
Come draw some questions! Collect mysteries! Follow rabbit trails! Make friends with clouds! Discover what you can do if you show up for yourself.
I’m doing this because I want to improve my own nature sketchbook practice and it will be more fun if you’re there, too!
Join by June 23rd to get a full year of sketching with me from Summer Solstice to Summer Solstice!
What to Expect
1. We meet Tuesdays at 3:00 PM Eastern. We will start promptly on the hour, so click on the link a few minutes before it’s time to join. You will receive reminders the day before and 1-2 hours before we start. There will be a 5-minute grace period for joining late. I like being able to see your faces, but you may choose to keep your camera on or off. Some people like the added accountability of keeping the camera on, but others might find the camera is a distraction. It’s up to you.
2. We set our intentions in the chat. Will you sketch something of your own or will you see where the prompts take you? Are you working on a yearlong project? We want to know about it! How are you feeling? Excited? Nervous? Tired? Simply notice and share if you feel like it.
3. I will say a few words and then at 10 minutes after the hour I will put a visual prompt on the screen. It may be a natural object from my cabinet of curiosities, a still image, or even a live or recorded video from one of the many wonderful nature webcams around the world. You may choose to sketch from the prompt images or a natural object or photo of your own.
4. I will set a timer. We will sketch for 5, 10, and 20-minute timed segments, each time with a new prompt added. You can choose to move on to the next prompt or continue with one you already started. Go where your brain wants to go!
5. For each prompt remember:
Sketch the object using simple shapes first–light and loose!
Create an outline using a darker pencil or pen line.
Add color and texture.
Use words, pictures, and numbers.
When pictures fail, use words. When words fail, use pictures.
When words and pictures fail, use numbers!
Use the prompts: I notice… I wonder… It reminds me of…
Learn as much about the object as you can.
The objective is to focus, extend your attention, and engage with nature.
Pretty pictures may happen. Or not! The important thing is to get your brain moving.
6. At the end of the third prompt we will share what happened, what did you learn? What went right? What will you do differently next time? How do you feel?
7. You may leave the meeting at any time, but I will officially end the class on the hour.
Do you have a yearlong sketchbook project you’ve been thinking about starting someday?
Keep a sky journal, sketch the same tree every week for an entire year, write a new poem every week and by next June you’ll have a book! Or, simply show up and see what happens.
Whatever you decide to try, by the end of the year, you'll have an extraordinary sketchbook filled with hundreds of observations and a record of your own growing powers of focused attention.
Starts June 23!
❋
A Year of Wonder
❋
Starts June 23! ❋ A Year of Wonder ❋
The Fine Print
The fee of $52 covers the whole year from summer solstice to summer solstice. The cost is the same no matter when you join, but our sketching year ends on the last Monday before the next summer solstice. The sooner you join us, the better!
No Refunds. I know it sounds harsh, but this is a commitment that you are making to yourself, your art practice, your attention, your ability to focus, your memory, and your wellbeing. Showing up consistently to do the work is the best way to build your skills and make a real difference. If you do this for yourself now, imagine where you will be in a year! If you decide to leave the group before the end of the year, think of your payment as having helped support this opportunity for others. Thank you for supporting my work.
If I miss a meeting for any reason, I will refund $1 per missed meeting to everyone who signed up and I really do not want to do that. How annoying would that be!
No Recordings. We show up consistently for ourselves. If you miss a meeting, please don’t beat yourself up. Join in the next week and schedule a time to make it up to yourself on your own as soon as possible. You can choose to use this as a drop-in-whenever-you-can kind of thing, too.
Perfect for students of all ages, scientists, poets, writers, artists, dreamers, creators, anyone who wants the healing, brain-rejuvenating, creativity stirring effects of building and maintaining a sketchbook practice.
No prior drawing experience needed. Bring a journal, something to draw and write with, art supplied you love, and you—just as you are.
“A nature journal is a love poem to the world.” —John Muir Laws
Weekly ScheduleA Year of Attention
Each week on Tuesdays we will gather to write and sketch for an hour.
Click the Link to Join2:55-3:05 PM Eastern
Welcome 3:00 PM-3:05 PM
We Set Our Intentions3:05 PM-3:10 PM
Silent Sketching3:10 PM-3:55 PM
Say Our Goodbyes3:55 PM-4:00 PM
Book Your Place
Still have questions?