Resolution

First of all happy new year to all of you!

I’m not really a person who would set new year resolutions. But I do have long term learning goals for myself and having launched this site with christmas as a milestone for 2017. I want to continue with another long time learning goal.

My next learning milestone is learning how to draw. As a kid I used to draw a lot, but as time passes and life continues we all forget about what we used to do for fun.

Also I noticed I did not pay much attention to my surroundings, as I used to do. To further elaborate an example, our brain is very good at figuring out and filtering out the bare necessities. When we learn something new, our brain is running on full power to digest and figure out how the task work. When the brain has accomplished this task it goes on auto pilot when we encounter this problem again.

So in daily life I noticed, I was running on autopilot and was not learning something new. That is why I stick myself to long time learning goals.

As earlier on this website described I started to observe my surroundings more after keeping bees and I want to further develop this behaviour and stream line it more.

Nature Journaling

On a late night internet stroll I stumbled on the website of John Muir Laws. He is a nature illustrator from california and learns people how to keep a nature journal. The concept of nature journaling fascinated me and I wanted to know more about it.

The short explanation for nature journaling is when you stroll through nature you observe your surroundings and draw what you see into a journal. During this drawing your brain is stimulated to observe and fuel your curiosity to question and explore.

I want to use drawing as a tool; to observe and learn about the world around me.

Planned resources:

I wanted to learn how to draw for a long time, I purchased John muir laws book somewhere in august. But when I wanted to start I felt the gap between what I could and what was shown was to big. I know this sounds stupid and should just have started but this was the case.

Around december 6th I picked up the book again and figured out I needed to start somewhere. When searching online for a basic course, I stumbled into the DrawaBox course. This is a free online drawing course which starts at the very basic. The philosophy of this course is to think about every line you make and use drawing as a tool to solve problems.

This philosophy was what triggered me to start the same day. So the drawing resolution for 2018 does not start at the first of january, but already started on the 6th of december.

For DrawaBox only a pen with ink is used.. But in the book of john muir laws, he also uses watercoloring during journaling. Because I know nothing about watercoloring and I want to start somewhere I bought the book watercolor everyday from xxxx. Also I bought the book pen and ink drawing from alphonso dunn as reference to follow during the DrawaBox exercises.

List with resources:

Learning

• Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling, The
• DrawaBox
• Everyday Watercolor: Learn to Paint Watercolor in 30 Days
• Pen and Ink Drawing: A Simple Guide

Materials

• Faber Castel Pitt Artists Pens for Art and Graphics, Set of 4, Black (FC167100)
• Pentel Japan Aquash Waterbrush Water Brush Pen, Medium
• Canson XL Mix Media Pad,9″X12″ Side Wire
• Winsor & Newton Cotman Water Colour Sketchers Pocket Box

This post commits me to keeping the resolution alive. I will update the progress on a regular basis. And you are welcome to remember me if I forget to give an update.