Gardening journal

Well this morning I am thinking of gardening...nevermind that it is blowing and snowing and grey and blustery in my little corner of the world! I need something filled with beauty and filled with colour to look forward to!!

Some of you lucky people in Florida have already started digging and eating fruit off your trees, but I'm still dreaming of the day I can even SEE the dirt out there :-)

I bought some seed packets a couple of weeks ago when our Sketch Club went to a local plant nursery to spend a delightful couple of hours sketching and watercolouring amongst the primulas and hibiscus. I must say there wasn't as much variety as other years we have gone, but it was probably because it was in January!
After sketching and watercolour painting some peacock feathers and some orchids I wandered around the seed racks for quite a while trying to decide what I would like to have in my garden this summer. Totally lifted my spirits!!!

So it's almost time to plant some of those seeds so they'll be ready for outside in May or June.

My garden journal is one I keep in a sketchbook. I like the Robert Bateman sketchbooks that have 110 lb paper - a little thicker than most or I will buy a field sketchbook with 140 lb. watercolour paper in it.

I like to use watercolour crayons to scribble sections of colour all over the page. Then I take a watercolour brush and a tiny bit of water and smoosh that colour all around until I get rid of the lines. Not all of them disappear. That's OK - adds texture. As I smoosh the adjacent colours mix together and I get that lovely watercolour blending happening. Love it!

When the page is dry (and I don't worry at all about buckling - it's part of the fun) I like to write and sketch on top of the colour. I use gel pens and Pigma pens (pigma pens are waterproof) Sometimes I will paste a photo into my journal and add writing around it. I use a kind of glue called "Yes!" glue. It doesn't make the magazine paper buckle. Check to see if you can get it at your local fine art store. Otherwise I use a glue stick that's archival but that tends not to stick forever.

Sometimes I will colour a border around the outside edge of the paper and draw or write in the center.
Sometimes I will colour sections and make each section about different topics. I like to embellish the sections with borders I draw with my pigma pen or with gel pens. Sometimes I use metallic acrylic paints watered down - leaves a wonderful shimmer, but pens won't always write properly over every surface treatment so you just have to experiment with what works for you.

I will draw a little map of my gardens and then draw where I'll want to place the plants in the spring. Researching heights of plants and how much they will spread is all part of this mapping out process.

I might make lists of plants that grow to a certain height
I'll list plants of a specific colour.
I might stick the outside packets right on the page.
I might draw the flower and paint it from the photo on the packet or online.
I write about things I learn about that flower - like - the butterflies like it - then I draw a couple of butterflies.
If you don't draw, you can cut and paste photos from gardening catalogues. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Birds and Blooms magazine for this!!! Lots of really wonderful photos for artists and lots of info about flowers and birds and butterflies - what they eat and the habitat they like to live in....GET it!
Great for us northerners too who are still dreaming about brown and green instead of white, white, white :-)

I like to have a little herb garden every year and I also collect recipes for using them right in my gardening journal. You could intersperse these in the pages as you find them or you could have a section in the back just for recipes.

I also like to learn about the local birds I find in my backyard in my gardening journal. Birds and feeders are all about gardens too :-)
I take photos and add them into my journal. I learn about them and their habits and preferences. If you love nature's creatures, you love learning interesting facts about them too.

Have fun with this and happy dreaming!
Deb E