Join me in London for an afternoon and evening of field journaling at the Royal Geographical Society, part of their Explore Festival!
Field notebooks are a time-honored tradition of explorers and naturalists for hundreds of years. Charles Darwin, Lewis and Clark, Mary Anning, and Beatrix Potter all kept careful notes of their observations and journeys.
Keeping a field notebook—also known as a nature journal—can both deepen our connections to the natural world and help us learn more about it. And you don’t have to a trained scientist or artist to keep a journal. This afternoon workshop will start you on the path to developing the skills of a naturalist and a field sketch-artist and a lifelong journey of discovery and exploration.
You will learn the tools and processes of keeping a nature journal with instructor Roseann Hanson, a Fellow of the Society and author of Nature Journaling for a Wild Life and Master of Field Arts. The workshop will focus on the importance of field notes, the cognitive value of visual learning, and the social and ecological value of sharing our discoveries.
The workshop will include:
The nuts and bolts of journal-keeping (paper and ink types, archival systems, how to make entries that you can refer to later, laying out pages, prompts to jump-start observations, and tips on researching science questions sparked by your observations).
Easy tips that enable anyone to get started sketching and painting.
Roseann will help free you from your inner critic and start sketching and painting. Art in a nature journal is not only lovely to see, but an important component of your skillset because the very act of drawing and painting something from life involves incredibly intense observation. Your brain is wholly occupied by only that thing you are observing and drawing—it is a kind of meditation that results in new insights, deeper understanding, and discoveries.
A short classroom session and, weather permitting, the rest of the session will be held in Hyde Park (please wear suitable footwear and outdoor clothing.)
A copy of the workbook, Nature Journaling for a Wild Life, which includes blank journal pages, special field tools and a basic field sketching set (pen, pencil, eraser, ruler).
WHEN: 1 November 2023
2.00pm - 5.00pm
WHERE: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR
COST: . £48 (includes handbook)
After the workshop, join us at the RGS for The Art of Exploration, a panel of environmental scientists, conservationists, explorers, and journalers as they discuss how exploring, studying and drawing what they observe deepens their connections to, and inspires conservation of, the natural world. See details >HERE<.