Nature Journaling Part 1

Nature Journaling with Kelly

When I was a kid growing up in Pensacola, Florida, I was fearless on my bicycle, riding through a thicket of trees and bushes filled with God knows what. Then, in my teen and younger adult years, I became fearful of nature. Fearful that I would get bugs on me or in my hair, or that a leech (yes, I know that's random) would crawl into my ear and suck me dry. I can't explain where that fear came from, but it was strong and lasted until I was about 30. 

At 30 I lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida -- land of canals, the Everglades, and alligators. But also, the land of beautiful beaches and amazing flora and fauna. 

With every field trip I took my students on to something filled with nature, I grew less and less fearful. I slowly found my way back to loving everything there is to love about it. I always had a love for deer, owls, and butterflies because they seemed to follow me no matter where I lived -- from apartment to apartment, house to house, and from city to city. That was always my connection to nature -- deer, owls, and butterflies. 

But the one thing I've not done is completely conquer my fear. It's much less than it was 10 years ago, but there are still some things I just will not do -- like swim in a lake or go hiking in trees without a hat. But here's the thing -- I will go to a lake and will go hiking -- that's something!!

So what's the big deal about all of this? Well, one of my absolute favorite nature journalers and all around nature-gal, Kelly Johnson of Wings, Worms, and Wonder is teaching a course on how to draw your self back to nature using art journaling!!!!!!

WHAAAAAT!!!! 

Two things I love and don't do enough of combined in one amazing class!!! I'm all over that. 

She launched the registration for the class today and I'm already in!! She's also asked me to take one of the first assignments and join her in a blog hop with Virginia Simpson-Magruder and Grace Howes. How could I say no to that? So TODAY is day one of the hop and Kelly started us off with an amazing prompt. Tomorrow, Virginia has a fantastic tutorial on her blog and then Grace of course will do something super terrific -- then I'll come in with a video showing my process for creating and starting the journal I plan to use for this blog hop and for Kelly's class. 

So I hope you'll join us for the blog hop AND for the class. We each have some amazing give-a-ways during the hop so make sure you hit all of the blogs this week and get signed up for the give-a-ways. Here's a link to Kelly's blog post where she starts us off with a really beautiful quote and a simple journaling page. 

If you play along with us, please be sure to tag me (@kialagives), Kelly (@wingswormsandwonder), Virginia (@kentuckygirldesigns) and Grace (@kgracehowes) on Instagram and use the hashtag #wingswormsandwonder so we can find you.