I am so thrilled that many people have been inspired to try nature journaling after watching the segment on Gardening Australia last week. I love hearing from you and seeing your journal pages! Because every journal entry is unique, and no two people’s journals can ever be the same – even if they are responding to the same bit of nature!

It doesn’t matter how ‘good’ you think you are at drawing or writing. The important thing is to get out into nature, to have a play, and to have fun. Like any skill, the more you practice and explore different techniques and materials, with an open and curious mind, the better you will get.

But the pressure for us to censor our ‘bad’ drawings, and to always aim for perfection, is strong. I’m not sure why this is. But I suspect it might have something to do with all of the realistic photographic images and perfect printed fonts that saturate our lives. Interestingly, people still seem to be drawn to the handwritten, the messy, the handmade items as well. Maybe we are more drawn to them because they are becoming rarer in our day-to-day life.

So in the spirit of sharing something handwritten and messy, and to give you more ideas for your nature journaling adventures, here’s an ‘Ideas sheet’ I created a few months ago. It was only meant to be a ‘draft’ that I was going to work up into something ‘nice’. But I ran out of time, started giving it out at workshops, and people seem to like it. Maybe they find it helpful because it’s messy? I don’t know, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Happy nature journaling!

Feel free to copy and share the image below. Or your can download a pdf version by clicking here.