It has been a lovely summer of drawing and nature, noticing and drawing the boundless nature that is one our doorsteps. Someone asked me where was my favourite place to see nature - well for me it is simply the easiest place to get to - and sometime this is just outside your front door, or garden or local green patch.
I have been running a host of workshops from the Isle of Wight, to Sedbergh in the Yorkshire Dales, Stanhope in County Durham, Northumberland, Cumbria, and, closer to home Gosforth Nature Reserve.
This is my chapbook showing the “Things seen and unseen”.
During the course of the three sessions at Gosforth Nature Reserve we were able to explore the woodland, meadow and wetlands with the young naturalists from the Natural History Society of Northumbria (NHSN) and complete create our own unique nature journals (chapbooks).
Each participant brought something different to the sessions and expressed their love of nature in their own unique fashion.
The activities room provides a perfect environment for creative work.
For my own nature journal my focus was as much on the things I did see but the nature I didn’t see. Hence the title: “Things Seen and Unseen”. This gave me permission to draw water voles, kingfisher, bittern as well as some lovely little flowers that I did see.
Some of the wildlife I didn’t see!
At the end of the three sessions we came back together to enjoy each others work, discuss the project and of course cake.
