Nature Study on Monday: Watercolor for the faint of heart

Today is Monday.





How convenient then that this guy scurried into our lives today... on Nature Study Monday. Woohoo!
See below for a helpful tip on how to incorporate watercolor in the nature journals a non-intimidating way.











Helpful Tips:

Has the following ever happened to you?
After spending time carefully looking at some amazing piece of Creation and after what seemed hours of painstaking concentration and sketching then erasing then sketching again, you've got a product that you're really quite satisfied with. No, you have a sketch that you love... and then you try to paint it... uh, well, let's just say, unfortunately you quickly fall out of love with your now warped, run-on colored, very wet sketch that is in your BOOK (the non-ripped out pages are slowly dwindling).

Has this ever happened to you? Well, it has happened in our house. More than once.
So, here's what I did today...

• Scan a copy of the pencil sketch from the nature journal. 
• Use a photo editing program to darken the lines by adjusting the contrast (picasa is free!). 
• Print a copy or two to practice using watercolors on, so as not to "wreck" the sketch! :) 
• Paste the printed off colored version into the nature journal, or use simply use it as a practice, getting your feet brush wet, before watercoloring in the original. :)

Though everyone does their own sketches in their own journals, afterwards, I let my littles choose if they'd like a practice in watercoloring one of my scanned sketches (they normally use a mix of pencils, colored pencils and dry brush in their own journals depending on the subject). I offered to scan/print copies of the older boys' sketches if they were a little nervous about altering theirs as well.

Attention to detail, trying to replicate the color/size EXACTLY is a super great exercise that comes from nature journaling. The littles may not have patience to dry brush their own sketches (and subsequently destroy them). After they've finished coloring their own sketches in their nature journals with colored pencil, or if they'd rather use water color and not mess up their books, I feel it's a valid exercise for them to occasionally "watercolor" a copy. I imagine that one could potentially use the Dover coloring books in this same way. :)





Would you like to join me? I'd love it if you did! Just grab the image above, post it in your post and then link up here in the comments. :)

Also linking up here: