I’m not always very brilliant at keeping going at a project. I get distracted and bored quite easily which is why I wanted to celebrate the fact that I’ve been keeping up with the #52WeeksofNature project every week for 3 months!

This is a project that I designed to combine my aims of regular drawing practice with getting outside and noticing the changing seasons. I’ve been getting outside for a walk at least once a week and then recording what I’ve noticed on a double page spread in my sketchbook. The project is recorded in full on my Insta but these are the double-ages, so far…

Some weeks, but not all, I’ve also completed a double-page landscape painting in the sketchbook.

I’ve predominantly used watercolour, watercolour pencil and crayon. I’ve also used some fineline and brush pens. The sketchbook is Royal Talens Art Creation which is Ok – the paper is white and thick enough but does buckle a bit with lots of water.

Over the weeks I’ve developed a bit of a process. First I make sure I get out for a few walks. Whilst I’m out I take time to notice what is around me. These aren’t fast, high-energy walks that will increase fitness! I am generally wandering and looking and listening hard. I don’t stick to paths but follow things that interest me such as a new bud or leaf on a tree. I end up in bushes and hedgerows!

I have a preferred route out of my house and, though I do vary it, I’ve started to get very familiar with certain trees and notice where certain birds tend to fly. Up the track round the back of the house there has several times been a skylark singing. Along the road out of the valley there is a small horse chestnut tree and I am tracking the development of its sticky buds. These and other aspects of nature have started to feel like friends. As I walk, I take photos of things I notice and, when I’m planning a landscape picture, I also do quick sketches in my smaller pocket sketchbook. I find these often help me more than the photo where the image I think I saw looks so different.

Later I put together the page. I decide what to feature and that is a thing in itself now! I’ve noticed that I’ve assigned rules to the project. I can’t draw anything that I feel isn’t really nature – anything that is in someone’s garden or grown on their verge for example. I also limit myself to things I’ve seen in the valley where I live. Doing so makes the project feel ‘right’.

I draw from my photos, cuttings of plants and things I have found on my walks. I also Google images to help me. Most of the birds are from Google images as I wouldn’t have been able to get as good pictures myself of moving creatures!

I really don’t love every picture in the sketchbook but there are some that I do really like. Lots of the birds have turned out well and some of the crayon drawings of leaves are effective. I’m not a fan of the landscapes but I’m glad I included them as they give a good sense of the changing seasons and I also feel my skill improving. The pressure to draw every week has made me get over it having to be perfect.

There have been times when it has felt like a bit of a chore and when the pressure to get something in the book for that week has actually added to stress levels rather than being something to look forward to. There has been the odd week when I’ve struggled to get out as much – for different reasons – and this has made it harder to find enough to draw.

Overall though I’ve loved it. I feel so much more connected to and knowledgeable about the nature around me. The drawings have given a real purpose to my walks and have forced me to get out which I know is good for me. Today in the sun as I researched Week 13 I felt truly alive and where I was at home. It was a good feeling! Follow me on Insta to stay in touch for the next 9 months!