Keeping a Journal

Ink sketch and watercolour

Journaling is the process of regularly writing your thoughts, your dreams, milestones, events and feelings down on paper and, these days, virtually on blogs. There are many different kinds of journals you can choose to keep but it is a powerful process that provides the opportunity to explore things in a measured way. It can also be fun to look back and discover how far you have come!

"A common symptom of modern life is that there's no time for thought, or for letting the impressions of the day sink in," says Thomas Moore. Setting aside a block of time, however brief, to freely express thoughts and feelings is psychically healthy.

Journals also affirm the value of our lives, preserve our memories and dreams, and help to pin-point emotional patterns. Writing about problems is a great way to work them out, and recording negative emotions is often akin to dropping them altogether.

Keeping a nature journal, for example, is a wonderful way to become spiritually centred. We are rewarded for the attention to detail and patience this practice requires with deepened understanding of what it means to be human and alive and a part of Creation. What you decide to put in your journal is a personal choice. Nature journals can be anything from field notes, which limit themselves to objective descriptions of what the writer has observed, to fully developed poems, stories, or essays in which the landscape is a major character.

You may want to draw or paint in your journal as well as write in it or to fill its pages with photographs or pressed flowers. Experience the natural world through fresh eyes! Keeping a nature journal is your most powerful ally in crafting the kind of life you want.

 One of my Nature Journals - here I used a Feint

::

Country Diary - The Art of Reverence

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”
- Yoko Ono

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!

Ink, wash and collage in a hand-made sketch-book with satin-finish Linen paper.

This satin-finish linen paper has the most wonderful quality of allowing the watercolours to flow beautifully just where you want it to go. The only drawback is that you can't change anything once you've put colour - trying to lift anything results in the paper almost disintegrating and coming of in chunks. You've got one shot at it, and it better be good! lol!

This is the fifth in the series Country Diary, which consists of paintings, sketches and collages depicting nature, rural and farm life.

Country Diary - Pay it Forward

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!

Ink, wash and collage in my Moleskine 200gsm "Country Diary"

When we open ourselves to the natural world, we escape the fast-paced bustle of our daily lives. That experience, not only reduces our stress, it also grounds us, reaffirming our connection to the Earth and all its creatures.

We need the tonic of wildness… We can never have enough of nature… We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.
- Henry David Thoreau

This is the third in the series Country Diary, which consists of paintings, sketches and collages depicting nature, rural and farm life.

Tulips from South Africa ♪♫

in the shady garden | one tulip

A Twitter poem from WATERMARK

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!


Tulips in a Vase - ink sketch and watercolour in my Daily Journal - Maree©

I have this vintage, white enamel jug, which I love to fill with flowers, even grasses which I gather from the road-side, and recently a friend who owns a flower farm here in Tarlton brought over some Tulips, which they export to Holland. We all equate Tulips with the Dutch, but according to my friend the tulips were brought from Turkey and introduced to the Dutch in 1593, and the Dutch have certainly coined the phrase "Tulips from Amsterdam"!

Keeping an Artist's Journal

Weeds in my garden

Well, the on-line art class "Keeping an Artist's Journal", offered by Cathy Johnson, has come to an end after 5 weeks, and this was an exercise in one of the lessons where we had to explore using various techniques in your art journal. Here I used some salt on the wet foreground, making for some interesting texture.



In the above exercise I explored collage - a piece of Hessian glued onto the page and used for the foreground of this watercolour scene, with some threads pulled up to give texture to the grass.

Although I've been journaling for many years, I found Cathy's class extremely informative and organised, beautifully laid out with great in-depth detail, covering every possible aspect of keeping an art journal.

I normally have been keeping various journals for various things - a Daily Journal for my deepest, inner thoughts, in which I often sketch and paint as well; A Gratitude Journal, where I write about what I'm thankful for every day, accompanied by little sketches; a small Moleskine note-book for to-do-lists, reminders, etc; a separate Moleskine Notebook for graphite and ink sketches and a Gardening Journal, where I note progress on my garden, visiting birds, etc. It's mayhem when I want to record something, and cannot find the relevant journal quick enough!



And this habit of having many different journals comes from my love of writing and note-books and sketch-books - I just cannot walk past a Moleskine or a pretty sketch-book without buying it!

Cathy's class helped me decide to integrate virtually everything into ONE journal. My daily gratitudes are now accompanied by little sketches, my To-do-List is at the back, together with my shopping list, also with little sketches. Pencil and ink sketches are done at a whim and my gardening progress, with sketches, dried leaves, flowers and dates is also incorporated as well as all the insects, birds and wild life in my garden - all together in one place, and easy to take anywhere!


My Feint 6-Quire Daily Journal. I mostly use it as my daily thoughts journal, but also do some accompanying sketches.

The only one that I'm keeping separate, is my Daily private journal. I use a large, thick, 6-Quire Feint, much too heavy to carry around and besides which, it is lined, beautiful to write in with my Parker fountain pen and has come a long way with me, helping to clarify thoughts and work through problems.

A lazy art Sunday

My art table yesterday

A lazy Sunday - spent the whole day sketching and journaling yesterday - what bliss! - also scanning previous sketches that I hadn't had time to do yet and filing them on my MAC.


My Feint 6-Quire Daily Journal. I mostly use it as my daily thoughts journal, but also do some accompanying sketches. This is yesterday's post.

The above journal entry reads :

"Sunday - 8th November
The Red Bishop is back, dear Journal, and covered in all his breeding finery! On Friday I thought I caught a glimpse of him, but wasn't sure.

"Red Bishop" - 'Euplectus orix nigrifrons Linnaeus'

He was sitting on the Tiger Grass under the Acacia Karroo eyeing the bird bath. Hoped to catch him bathing, but he decided the feeding table was a better option."


Southern Red Bishop - I edited out the writing lines of the Journal

Moleskine Journal entry

A daily journal entry and sketch ...




.

Moleskine Journal entry and watercolour sketch - Maree©

(Click to enlarge)


.

"Yesterday the twig was brown and bare;

Today the glint of green is there;

Tomorrow will be leaflets spare;

I know nothing so wondrous fair,

No miracles so strongly rare.

I wonder what will next be there!"

- L.H. Bailey

Garden Journal entry

An entry and sketch in my Daily Garden Journal
(Click to enlarge and read the entry)

To me, the garden is a doorway to other worlds; one of them, of course, is the world of birds. The garden is their dinner table, bursting with bugs and worms and succulent berries.

Aloe

"Aloe" pencil sketch and watercolour - a page from my Journal - Maree©

I did this sketch of an Aloe in my garden last Friday after I had noticed that the Blackbirds were all visiting this one, and the reason was soon apparent - it was fairly dripping with nectar! The flowers always seem to produce the most nectar just as they're getting to the end of their life-span. It's their special gift to nature.


Detail of Aloe