Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned journal keeper, this experience will inspire you to observe, reflect, and document the wonders of the nature in the gardens. This will also be the ideal prompt for gardeners to document their own garden and be inspired by the gardens of Mottistone.
What to expect
You will be given a little concertina journal and I will show you how to describe your subject in words and pictures. He will offer hands on tips and tuition for drawing and adding colour. All materials are supplied including pens and watercolour sets.
You will be shown how to look at the nature on your doorstep and how to record this in your own mini nature journal. Steve will show you the tools and materials he uses and he will help you to develop your own style and techniques helping you to make nature journalling part of your own daily practise.At the end of the session you will be well on your way to continuing your journal journey.
About Mottistone Gardens and Estate
Created from an abandoned farmyard and surrounding an attractive Elizabethan manor house, these 20th-century gardens are experimenting with a Mediterranean-style planting scheme to take advantage of the warm, southerly location. Here the tall leaves of exotic plants fill the borders whilst a young olive grove is establishing itself on the high banks.
The estate
Stretching from the chalk downs through rolling hedge-lined farmland and down to the sea, the wider Mottistone Estate is a landscape shaped over thousands of years.
Today the land is still cared for in a nature-sensitive way. Walk along any of the paths and you might spy butterflies gathering nectar from wild flowers, or rare birds in the wide skies overhead. In the summer, the elusive Nightjar even makes its home here on the common.