Nature is all around us, providing abundant materials for drawing and painting. You don't have to be an artist to draw. Drawing is a way of thinking, seeing and analyzing what we see. You don't have to expect to make a finished drawing for it to be time well spent.

When you sit and study a flower or leaf enough to draw its every aspect, you learn about it and see it in a way no one else can. Drawing nature is a good excuse for staring at a flower for a few minutes or several hours. In today's hurried world we seem to need an excuse to stop and really look at a flower. The artist Georgia O'Keeffe said, "Still - in a way - nobody sees a flower really. It is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time." Take time to stop and not only smell the roses, but draw them!

Keep sketchbooks to capture the various aspects of nature for different purposes. Carry a small sketchbook with you on walks to record the interesting features you encounter. It doesn't even have to be a real sketchbook, a handful of 3x5" index cards in the car for the purpose. These are useful to record what might make a nice painting or drawing later. Use the unlined side for the sketch and the lined side for notes on the scene. You will not use all of the ideas you come home with but you will have them if you need an idea and the cards file easily.

Each rough sketch can show the composition or painting idea with in a 'thumbnail' size. These are usually very simplified and often no one but the artist could explain what all the scribbles represent. General forms and light, medium and dark values are the most helpful later trying to create a painting from the ideas. Try to imagine the scene in black and white and analyze which forms are lighter or darker than those near them. It is the dark and light contrasts that make the painting interesting.

Draw with scribbles to understand the form of birds or flowers. Look at the shape and feel around it on the paper with a pencil. Note the lines of a petal, where each angle meets another. Compare parts of the whole and see how they relate to each other. Don't start with the intricate details, they would surely be in the wrong place when you're done. Start with the largest and most simple shapes. Don't draw the individual petals on a daisy at least until you have drawn the saucer-like shape of the whole flower.

Draw what is really there rather than what you think is there. Look at where the branches connect on the trunk of a tree, see how thick the branches are. Scribbles will help you to realize the solid roundness of tree branches or rocks. Two parallel lines will not tell you as much about the form of a tree as the rounded scribble shape. When you draw try not to just outline the shape you see. The tree or butterfly has weight and occupies space. It is the shape that will explain it, not the pattern it makes silhouetted against a background.

When you walk in the woods look for those materials that seem to best describe the season or experience. Seek the bit of color that attracts your eye and the feather, abandoned nest, or chewed mushroom that you discover can eventually find its way on your journal page or into a major painting. Having this intent in mind you will see more of the wilderness around you. Much of the experience of nature is being aware of the little things. When you are alert for a bit of movement or color and looking for something interesting to paint you see and comprehend more of the natural world.

A nature journal can be a productive project. Slowly slowly fill it with paintings of wildflowers and other materials in the order of seasons. Label each blank page in a sketchbook with a month or season in order. Every week pick up a leaf, flower or twig and, bringing it back to the studio, paint it carefully on the appropriate page. When the journal is filled with small paintings or drawings it will show the progression of seasons. There need not be any large scenes, only small individual specimens painted or drawn actual size. It may take several years to complete the project, but the effort will be most worthwhile.

Be careful when you are bringing materials indoors to draw and study! Mushrooms (especially the white ones) are often poisonous and can cause permanent injury if the tiny spores get into a soft drink at your elbow! A wildflower bouquet often brings in insects or grubs who are attracted to the light over the drawing table and may proceed to march over your painting. The nature you bring indoors will fade quickly so plan to draw and study it immediately. A damp paper towel wrapped around the base of a stem will help keep flowers or other material alive longer. It is also useful to float small flowers in a dish or keep a tangle of roadside weeds in a bucket.

Keep a pen and sketchbook near a magnifying glass or small microscope for drawing details. While it is difficult to draw anything under magnification you will find the views are very helpful to tell you the exact structure of a flower or leaf. Once you look at a specimen closely enough to draw its details you will always remember it. When you begin to draw nature you may only know the names of a few trees, but you will learn many flowers, butterflies and birds by drawing them one by one. It is easier to understand the relationships between botanical families when you see how a plant is structured.

If you enjoy nature, take a sketchbook with you when you go out. It doesn't matter if you are an experienced artist or an occasional art hobbyist. Not only will you see the wonders around you more completely, you will understand nature better and have your sketches to bring back the memory of your experience.

By Sharon Himes
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