Jack Hobe Nature Art

Nature journaling is the act of downloading your brain to paper. This process is fun, creative, joyful, and focuses attention, curiosity, and creativity. Journaling also emphasizes inter-disciplinary use of concepts and techniques, and incorporates such wide-ranging disciplines as mathematics, art, visual thinking, critical thinking, language arts, scientific inquiry and methods, and much more. This is one of the most incredible gifts you could give to your children or students–it is a tool kit that they will use and develop for the rest of their lives and also something that they can apply to anything that intrigues them. If you’d like more info on why journaling is such an important practice to impart to your children or students, check out my Journaling With Your Family page.

Looking for materials to use so that you can get your kids or students started with nature journaling? Below is a list that I have compiled of kid- and classroom-friendly journaling supplies that are easy to obtain and low-cost. Note: click on each item’s name to visit the webpage for that item.

The Basics:

All kids really need to get started with journaling are a notebook and a pencil. Here are some easy-to-find suggestions that would work great:

Notebooks:

• Bare Books Sketchbook– This is a great, low-cost, durable notebook with blank pages and unmarked covers for personalization. A great choice for younger children or long-term classroom situations, these sewn-binding notebooks retail for $2.45 apiece.
• Composition Books– Another great option for affordable kid-friendly sketchbooks. These can be easily found at a local office supply store, although beware–many manufacturers produce books with flimsy covers that don’t offer much support. If you decide to go with this option, be sure to get books with hard, cardboard covers that will stand up to field conditions. Also, I recommend unlined or grid-ruled paper if you can find these as they encourage kids to experiment with page composition and dynamic layouts.
• Clipboard and paper- If you are in a short-term classroom situation or wanted to incorporate journaling into a day camp routine, this simple solution would work great. Buy a few standard-size clipboards and attach sheets of blank printer paper to make a temporary note-taking board. As a plus, you can reuse clipboards for future lessons!

Pencils:

• Ticonderoga #2 HB Pencils– The quintessential school pencil is a fantastic way to get your kids/students recording their nature observations without blowing the budget. You probably have several of these in your classroom or home already! Just make sure that pencils do not get lost during activities–attach them to notebooks of clipboards with string or twine to prevent this from happening.

Additional Art Supplies/Add-ons:

Prismacolor 20028 Col-erase Non-photo Blue Pencil

This is a great tool for older kids or students to try out. The pale blue lines that this pencil makes will help to block in the basic gist of your subject before more confident graphite pencil lines are laid on top. This pencil should be used at the start of the drawing to get the proportions and angles of the subject correct. If you are in a classroom situation, these also come in a handy 12-pack (available at the link above). Make sure you get the specific brand listed above, as other non-photo blue pencils do not make the ghosty lines!

Adding Color:

After they have gotten used to the process of nature journaling, kids will often want to try using colors in their journals. Here are a few suggestions for adding color:

• Colored Pencils– These are probably the easiest way to incorporate color into your journal pages. I would recommend buying a small pack of 12 or 24 Prismacolor pencils–any larger and the choice of colors will be overwhelming and a hassle to carry around. Bundle your pencils with rubber bands in the field to keep them organized, and carry them in a pencil bag rather than the metal tin they are sold in. Also, make sure you get a pencil sharpener to sharpen dull points!
• Watercolor- This is an option for the older kids that will be under your supervision. While they can make beautiful effects in a relatively short amount of time, watercolors can be hard to master. I would recommend starting with a Windsor and Newton Cotman Sketcher’s Pocket Box. This is an inexpensive small palette with good quality paint. A few modifications will enhance its value even more; check out this page for instructions on how to do this. I would also recommend using a water brush (detailed below) instead of the collapsible brush that comes with the kit. If you are really wanting to get younger kids interested in watercolor, try the Prang Oval-Pan Watercolor 16-well Set. This palette contains paints that are safe if eaten and washable.
• Pentel Aquash Large Fine Tip Waterbrush– This is an indispensable tool for those who do watercolor in the field–the water is held in the handle of the brush, which eliminates the need to have a separate jar of mucky water with you. All of the paintings on this website were done with a Pentel waterbrush; it is my favorite brush by far and I highly recommend. Also, when in the field I put an old sock with the toe cut off on my wrist for wiping paint off the brush.