I haven’t done a sketchbook tour in a while, and some of these pages feel like I’ve done them ages ago. In fact, they span from September to early December. I haven’t been nature journaling as much as I’d like, but I’ve done a lot of landscape studies – I’ll share another tour with these soon.
Here’s a video version of this sketchbook tour:
Nature Journal Sketchbook Tour | Autumn 2020
One of the highlights this autumn was a tour that I documented on these two pages – we had ravens, an old farm building, interesting nature finds on the way, and an overall really nice day. I’ve filmed an entire video about my sketching process for this one too.
One thing I do every year is collect berries and different leaves to sketch them – especially when the colors start to change. I sketched the right side with the self-made walnut ink (find the recipe here)
Sometimes I don’t add a lot of color to a sketchbook page, and a pencil is a really versatile tool on its own.
I don’t really like how this page turned out layout-wise, but I remember it’s one of the instances where I really had time to take notes and study my subject on site. It was during a climb up a steep hill and I took a small break to look at these egg-shaped mushrooms.
The idea behind this page was that of old photographs or postcards with rounded corners, so I sketched three landscapes that I particularly liked on that hike, and in the end there was still place for a white egret. You can see me sketch this page during the creative inventory video – let me know if you like these sort of paint-along-videos.
Amongst the last flowers that I saw in bloom in late October was this nightshade I found in a local park – I really love the different violets and purples on the plant.
During this hike in November I had a lot of fun looking for smaller things to sketch – and in the end I added the cemetery gate of the small town where we had parked. I like sketching old architecture, it reminds me of forgotten times.
After I had started with these double page spread about mushrooms I had the idea to make a class for you about how to sketch mushrooms, and so I did. A lot of these mushrooms are included, and quite a few more. Here’s the class if you want to take a look.
More fungi from the mushrooms sketching class:
I hope you enjoyed this sketchbook tour. Next time, I’ll share my recent landscape sketches with you. What have you been sketching recently?
I like the loose sketching technique. I liked the style. Shows some detail .
Thank you Sally!
Thank you so much Julia. I love all your emails. I appreciate them very much. I love your art and enjoy watching your YouTube videos. I have learned a lot from you. Thank you for your time and talent