Drawing With Children: Nature Journal Style Lesson 1

For those of you using Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes it might be interesting to try to adapt those lessons to work in your nature journals.

I would complete "Choosing Your Starting Level", pages 40-52 without any changes.

Here's what I came up with for Lesson 1, pages 55-79.

Work through the lesson as outlined with the following adjustments:
1. As you learn the "5 Basic Elements of Shape", make sure to have some objects from your recent nature walk to look at. Use those objects to find the elements of shape.
2. Play the "Visual Games" from page 64 while on your next nature walk.
3. Draw the bird as outlined on pages 75-79. Finish the bird drawing by sketching an actual tree branch that you have seen on your nature walk.
4. Before you move on to lesson two, practice drawing different birds you have observed by using a field guide or a bird photo. Use the basic bird drawing technique and adapt it to birds you have seen on a nature walk or at your birdfeeder.

Well, that was easy to adapt. I will try to work on the rest of the lessons in the weeks to come.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom