The idea of keeping a nature notebook sounds so lovely, but for some people, the thought of making a nature painting is more than a little overwhelming! You may feel insecure about your abilities with a brush and paint, and allowing anyone to ever see your work is out of the question.

Florence Rankin, a student at Charlotte Mason’s teaching college, likely felt the same way. Two of her nature notebooks are archived in the Charlotte Mason Digital Collection. Her first nature note was entered on February 2, and yet she didn’t attempt her first drawings until March 6 and 7 — an entire month after she started journaling.

Although she didn’t attempt another drawing until April 5, a full month later, you can already see some improvement.

Finally, two and a half months after she began keeping a nature notebook, we see the following delightful drawing.

After that her ability to draw seemed to take off. She showed improvement continually, and by July she had made several beautiful drawings including the two below.

It’s also interesting to look at her initial drawings of a specimen that would not hold still or that she would have had to make from memory. Below are her first four attempts at butterflies, all made in August. The second drawing was covered with paper, on which she wrote, “Too bad to show.” The note accompanying the third drawing says, “Seen flitting about the marshes.” The fourth includes the comment, “From memory. badly done. on the Essex marshes.” Despite her notes, we see a definite improvement in her work.

In the article “The Approach to Art,” K. Minn explained the value of memory drawings, which may give us insight into how they likely increased Miss Rankin’s ability:

Memory drawing is similar to narration; it cultivates the habit of attention, trains the eye to be observant, and helps the child to visualise pictures in the mind before transferring them to paper and before making his model in handicraft. Visualisation is one of the most essential factors necessary to the creation of a work of art. (p. 327)

At the end of the year, when examiner Herbert Geldart ranked the student’s notebooks, he wrote, “Nine books have been sent, which I place in order of merit thus :— Class 1 : Misses * F. Rankin, …” The asterisk next to her name was the subject of the footnote: “* With distinction for excellence of drawing.” Also in Geldart’s general report, he said: “I have not before had a book containing so many excellent sketches, of both plants and insects, as Miss Rankin’s, and the drawing of the whole of the first-class is very good.” (PR 5, p. 948)

Some students came to the House of Education with previous drawing experience, but others had none. Still, the progression we see in Florence Rankin’s notebook helps us recognize that drawing is a skill that can be learned and improved. Charlotte Mason’s students, whether they were adults attending her teaching college or young children using the Parents’ Union School curriculum, took weekly brush drawing lessons. Below are some basic techniques for brush drawing, or what is now called ‘wet on dry’ watercolor. Learning these skills will give you a good foundation. You must recognize, however, that to confidently execute what is taught, you must practice it for yourself, likely with a great deal of trial and error.

Get Comfortable With Your Paintbrush

Mrs. Henry Perrin, the author of “Brushwork,” parts one and two, wrote:

[T]he brush, well filled with colour—say light red—should be held vertically with the wrist of the right hand resting on that of the left, in order to gain both freedom and steadiness. The point of the brush only must touch the paper, and the pressure to be such as to produce a fine regular line. (Brushwork I, p. 346)

[T]he brush is capable of giving various impressions of form in mass according to the angle at which it is placed on the paper and the amount of pressure used; it is well for children to notice these forms and to practise all in different directions, not forgetting the line work with the point of the brush. The “blob” impression is most useful for many petals and for small leaves, etc., but the elongated ovate form is perhaps the most needed as for instance in crocuses, daisies, etc., and many leaves. My object in saying this, is to show that it is best to do all leaves and petals with one touch of the brush (Brushwork II, p. 455-56)

There is little chance you remember learning to write your name, but you know that the effort required to begin making neat letters is substantial for a child. Using a paintbrush to lay down lines resembling stems, leaves, and petals, among other things, also requires much control of the hand and coordination with the eye. While painting utilizes a vertical motion similar to writing, we also must learn to make horizontal movements that affect the width of the stroke. When painting a leaf or a petal, for example, the goal is not to make a narrow outline and then to fill it in, but instead, we must learn to press our brush down as we move, widening the stroke and then to lift it just the right amount to create a point.

To get comfortable with your brush, you should begin with “mark making,” as watercolor teachers call it. That is to use your brush or brushes to make as many different marks as you can dream up. This activity helps you become familiar with what your brush can do, and after that, you can practice making marks that resemble the shapes you see around you. It may be helpful to watch the video tutorial Watercolor Basics: How to Paint Simple Leaves, which demonstrates mark making to create a variety of leaves. You may also like to purchase Brush Drawing: A Basic Course by Richele Baburina which explains how to hold your brush and make the “blobs” mentioned above.

Get Control Of Your Water

They should also be taught that their water should be always clean during painting … The colour in the brush should be liquid enough to flow freely, and when once applied to the paper, not touched again whilst wet. … They can also be directed to gradate shades of the same colour, or different colours one into the other, as seen in the rainbow, sunset, petals of flowers, etc. (Brushwork II, p. 455)

While watercolor dries fast and is the perfect medium for a nature notebook given its vibrancy and luminosity, it can feel a bit out of control at times. There are a few easy techniques you can employ to get the upper hand or at least give it some boundaries. Once you have become comfortable with them, you can even use the unique properties of watercolor to your advantage.

I highly recommend the video tutorial Controlling Water / Pigment Ratio in Watercolor. When you are done, spend some time practicing the concepts mentioned in the video. You may like to make a chart similar to the one below showing the different colors you can get depending on the amount of water you use.

Learn About Color

It is necessary from the first to get children to see the beauty of pure colour. They should be shown that the box and palette are to be kept in clean working order, and the colours free from muddiness caused by the reckless stirring of one colour into another, a trick so popular with children. (Brushwork II, p. 454)

Learning about color was a game changer for me. In the past, I frequently spent more time mixing colors than painting my specimens, and more often than not, I had to settle on ‘good enough.’  Some quality instruction, however, transformed my experience! Now I keep a minimal number of colors in my pallet and mix them as needed.

I should mention that despite the fun looking messy pallets seen on Instagram, I do not leave my pallet dirty. Instead, I wipe my mixing areas clean at the end of every paint session. While watercolors are the only medium that can reactivate when water is added to it, they do become flat and ‘muddy’ after you have mixed more than just a few colors together. To take advantage of watercolor’s luminosity, we should start fresh each time. Be assured, however, that if you learn about color mixing, this clean slate will feel freeing and preparing just the right color will be quick and easy.

The Color Wheel

Teachers should show their little would-be artists the difference between reflected colours and those which receive the direct light, and bring their eyes to see all the colours of the tulip in the grey light on the leaf. Ruskin says :—The man who can see all the greys, and reds, and purples in a peach will paint the peach rightly round and rightly altogether.” (Brushwork II, p. 455)

I encourage you to watch the video tutorial How to Use Complementary Colors in Watercolor Painting to learn about the color wheel. And then follow the host’s directions to make a color wheel with the paints you own. You may also choose any of the three primary colors from your pallet to make a color wheel. A bigger project is to create a chart of all the colors that can be made with the paints in your pallet, as shown above. Experimenting with your colors in these ways will give you the ability to quickly mix up just the right color to represent the specimen you want to paint.

Mixing Neutrals

The number of browns and greys in nature cannot be counted, and you would be amazed by how many of them you can create with the paints you own. It would also be useful to watch the tutorial Warm vs Cool Colors in Watercolor & Mixing Browns to learn about mixing neutral colors and then follow up by making some charts like those shown below.

Layering

A good exercise is to practise the production of secondary colours by passing one colour over another when dry, as for instance in the case of violet, the blue can be passed over the pink. The effect is often far better than a previously mixed tint, and the children are able better to notice the action of one colour upon another in different proportions. (Brushwork II, p. 455)

Layering, also called glazing, can be used to add shadows, depth of color, or highlights. It can be used to create a new color or increase the range of values for a single color, either of which will add interest and life to your paintings. Watch the video Watercolor Glazing and Layering Basics to learn several useful tips.

Blending Color

Very pretty effects can be produced by one touch of say purple and another brush of yellow colour laid at the side of it, so that the two unite while wet, making an exquisite gradation most useful in flower painting and design. (Brushwork II, p. 455)

I saved this technique for last because it can be the most difficult. Blending watercolor while it is still wet, called wet-in-wet, allows you the least amount of control, but it also provides the most interesting results. Watch the video tutorial Basic Watercolor Techniques 3 – Wet in Wet Washes to learn how to set some boundaries and get the most out of this method.

There are many more tips and techniques to be learned beyond those mentioned here, but these basics are enough to get you started with confidence and enthusiasm. After that, regularly painting will likely be enough to take you the rest of the way, and of course, if you want to learn more, there is a whole world of instruction at your fingertips! Remember, Florence Rankin may have started slow, but after a few months of steady effort, she had made considerable progress. I hope you will reflect on the things that got her to that end, including weekly drawing lessons, continued observation of nature, and an effort to make drawings in her notebook regularly — even if at times she wanted to cover them up.

PostScript — If you are anything like me, this stuff will get your heart beating faster, but let me remind you of something I have mentioned before in this series. Your enthusiasm may be contagious to your children, but it can also get in the way of them taking in new ideas for themselves. I suggest that you include a lesson now and then, such as how to mix colors or even just watch one of the videos mentioned above, but then let your children experiment with these tools without too much interference from you. As Miss Downton reminds us in her article “The Approach to Nature Study,” the nature notebook is not the place for drawing instruction: “But here again emphasis must be laid upon the importance of hints and suggestions only being given with the greatest care and discretion, so that the child may keep his book in his own way as far as is possible.” (PR 47, p. 338)

Resources:

A Delectable Education Podcast Episode 98: Drawing
A Delectable Education Podcast Episode 99: Art Studies
Bestowing the Brush Podcast interview with Emily Kiser
John Muir Laws’ tutorials on how to draw almost every natural thing
Local Color: Seeing Place Through Watercolor with 14 Practices by Mimi Robinson
Caitlin Sheffer: Watercolor Basics: How to Paint Simple Leaves
Brush Drawing: A Basic Course by Richele Baburina, produced through 20/20 Press, LLC.
The Mind of Watercolor:
Controlling Water / Pigment Ratio in Watercolor
How to Use Complementary Colors in Watercolor Painting
Warm vs Cool Colors in Watercolor & Mixing Browns
Watercolor Glazing and Layering Basics
Basic Watercolor Techniques 3 – Wet in Wet Washes
How to Avoid Muddy Colors in Watercolor

See the article Notes, part 1 for suggested supplies (including notebooks and paints.)

References:

Downton, M. G. “The Approach to Nature Study.” Parents’ Review, vol. 47, 1936, pp. 333-339.
Geldart, H. “Our Work.” Parents’ Review, vol. 5, 1895, pp. 947-948.
Minn, K. “The Approach to Art.” Parents’ Review, vol. 47, 1936, pp. 322-332.
Perrin, H. “Brushwork I.” Parents’ Review, vol. 4, 1893, pp. 453-457.
Perrin, H. “Brushwork II.” Parents’ Review, vol. 4, 1893, pp. 453-457.
Rankin, Florence. “Notebooks from Eve Anderson, Including 2 Nature Notebooks (by Florence Rankin 1894 & 1899), Book of Centuries, by Eve Anderson, and History of Education, by Eve Anderson. ARMITT Box PNEU24, File pneu162, Items i1(a)p1pneu162-i5p142pneu162.” WorldCat, www.worldcat.org/title/notebooks-from-eve-anderson-including-2-nature-notebooks-by-florence-rankin-1894-1899-book-of-centuries-by-eve-anderson-and-history-of-education-by-eve-anderson-1894-1952/oclc/931544866&referer=brief_results.

Photo Credits:
Archive.org, Charlotte Mason Digital Collection, Florence Rankin, 1894.

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