Making a nature notebook painting is easier than making an imaginative painting because it is simply a question of copying what you see before you. Painting from a photograph, however, is not ideal, as photos do not provide an accurate record of true-to-life colors. Therefore, whenever possible, paint specimens that you can look at directly.

To prepare, tape your specimen to a piece of white paper that is preferably the same size as your notebook. Attempt to arrange it in a way that looks natural. Hopefully, you spent time looking at it carefully before you picked it and can now place it in a position that makes sense. Alternatively, you may leave your specimen in a vase. I sometimes use a small espresso cup with a folded paper towel inside to guide the specimen into its most natural position while preventing the flower petals from being pressed into an irregular position. Even with this arrangement, you still need a white background behind your specimen, as its precise color is better seen in this way, and it limits the distraction from other objects.

Next, prop your paper with the specimen against a picture frame or a book or tape it to a wall so that it is a few feet from you. I often place my specimen on the far side of the table I’m sitting at. Take a moment to observe it again. You’ll notice that you cannot see all the details from this distance so you will be forced to focus on the obvious attributes rather than the minute details. Continue reading →

Miss Mason, in her admirable system at the House of Education, gets her students to bring back leaves and buds of trees from their walks, and to copy them in “Brushwork,” with name, locality and date attached to each. The twigs with buds they secure early in the spring, and later in the year compare their sketches with the same trees when in full leaf. This is an excellent way of teaching the students to know the many varieties of trees and shrubs, and to identify them at any time of the year. (Perin, Brush Drawing II, p. 454)

When you take a nature walk, you may see a specimen or two that you would like to bring home to paint in your nature notebook. Of course, you must be considerate of the next person who will walk that trail and therefore, you should never pick flowers or take home objects that are protected or of which there are only a few. We know this was a problem in Charlotte Mason’s day, as it was written about often, and it can still be a problem today. I once took a walk with my daughters with the sole intention of showing them a beautiful flower I had seen the day before, only to find it was gone. Maybe a person picked it, or perhaps a deer ate it, but you can imagine my disappointment when it wasn’t there.

It’s useful to note that the drawings we see in the House of Education student-teacher notebooks are not of rare or endangered species. Instead, students just mentioned these flowers in their notes and then made paintings of the more common flowers. For the most part, my own book includes wildflowers from my yard that most gardeners would call weeds. In fact, on more than one occasion I have asked my husband to please weed-eat or mow around a new plant in our yard so that I could look at it more closely later — the latest having grown almost overnight to a height of seven feet! (If you are imagining him rolling his eyes at me, you would be correct.) I also love to paint grasses, which are abundant in almost any region. Once you start noticing them, you will see there is such variety, and they are all so graceful and beautiful. Continue reading →