Click on thumbnails above to see larger images
In my previous post I wrote about John Muir Laws book, The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds. Imagine how happy I was to find that he also has organized The Nature Journal Club, a monthly meet up and workshops series. I went to my first one last month, at one of my favorite places in the Bay Area, the Palo Alto Baylands. It was so much fun, with people of all ages and abilities there to keenly observe the birds and landscape.
Honestly, I could go out anytime and draw or paint, and I often do. But there’s something about being with a group of people all focused on the same thing that makes it ever so much more satisfying. And you can learn by sharing observations and techniques, stories and jokes.
If you live in the Bay Area, I hope you’ll consider coming out for the next Sunday outing, or one of the weekday workshops. But if you don’t live in the Bay, I hope you’ll organize your own Nature Journal Club where you live.
Pencil Sketch
The Nature Journal Club is free, but donations are welcome and encouraged. During a time when our natural world is beleaguered unto the point of disappearance, if people will get outside and really see the world so that they feel close to it, perhaps we’ll find a way to make a healthy world as important as development.
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Mockingbirds at midnight 
How wonderful! Jack Laws is one of my greatest inspirations….his take on being-in-nature as a spiritual practice really resonates with my own. Thinking about you together makes my heart warm! You might want to consider coming up for the Mono Lake Bird Chautauqua if he is scheduled to lead his wonderful art-making/nature observing field trips. It’s in the middle of June. Information not online yet. we go every year. It’s life changing.
Oh, I wish I could! I’ll keep it in mind for next year.