We live in town, but have land out in the country, so for the sake of Nature Study (and Mama's sanity...which I'll admit is very closely tied to nature study), our school curriculum is arranged so that every Wednesday morning, we pack up kids, dog, breakfast, rubber boots and nature journals...
...and leave the rest at home.
Today, the world was FULL of butterflies! The kids and I had a great time. :) After trying to sketch a moving target, we decided it was better at least for now to use the camera, and then paint from the photo.
Do you see the real butterfly? It came to see if the cover picture was real or not!
There is a lot I like about this picture. I may not be overly artistic, but my God is, so there. :)
I'm rather low-tech in general, but I'm SO thrilled at what cameras can capture!
This is blurry...but it was a victory in that it was the ONLY shot we could get of the undersides of this one. This is the SAME butterfly as the blue beauty featured next! Our favorite of the day!
This is our first year to work with watercolor. It was fun...I am NOT good at it yet, but I have learned to appreciate the value of truly seeing something in an effort to draw it. My daughter and I were talking about it today, and I realized something. Those of us who use a Charlotte Mason approach to schooling are familiar with the value of retelling to make an idea your own. That being said, if creation is the story we're reading from, the nature journal is the re-tell; just the act of drawing something, with attention to detail, REGARDLESS of how "artistic" the end result seems, has value.
(as a side note, we are using these half size notebooks for Nature Journals...I find it comforting to be able to put the page on the table or a little clip board until I'm done with it, and then clip it in my book. This is good, especially if you have brothers that spill things down the length of the table. ;) It has also seemed to help with getting over the fear of trying something new that if you ruin a drawing, you can just take it out. Also, if you want a page with lines, it's easy to add it where you want it. Anyway, we've liked the system so far and are already excited about next Wild Things Wednesday!
