Explore and Draw

Come on a journey outdoors with me and my sketchbook

Spring has arrived in the UK and, after what felt like a long winter, I needed to soak up that restorative springtime energy. We had a brief spell of fine weather last week so I took the opportunity to head out with my nature journal to my local nature reserve, prepping a couple of pages with inks in advance.

In this video I share:

• How I prepped my pages

• The materials used (full list also listed at the end of this post)

• Lots of snippets of my journey to the nature reserve (including meeting a sheep and a bee on the way) and what I sketched when I arrived. It turns out filming yourself drawing on location is tricky! Next time i’ll bring a tripod or an assistant..

• The end of the video includes a very pleasing removal of masking tape for your visual ASMR pleasure!

I hope by sharing this journey with my nature journal, I will inspire you to make some time for yourself and go out into nature to explore and draw.

I have started this as a hashtag on Instagram, if you would like to share any of your sketches made outdoors, then please feel free to use #ExploreAndDraw and I will share to my stories.

(Just to mention, this video views best in full-screen mode)

Materials used:

• Pith Kabosu sketchbook

• Masking Tape

• Diamine ink in Grey and Green Umber

• Caran d’Ache Luminance pencils - Violet Grey & Moss Green

• Derwent Lightfast Pencils - Mars Black

• Ecoline Liquid Watercolour in Light Yellow

• Daler Rowney Acrylic Ink in Light Green

• Caran D’Ache Neocolour II pastel in White

I actually love the page at this stage, particularly the lines between the blobs. I used the glass pipette of the ink/watercolour bottle to draw them. I like the varied marks and how the different materials bleed together.

Some things that caught my interest during the trip

I hope you enjoyed this post and it inspires you to spend some time on your nature journal. 🌿

If you would like to share this post, simply click the link below for options. Thank you 🙂