Nature Journaling Your Self: Challenge Day 27

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Have you tried nature journaling yourself?

Today’s Prompt: Parachute yourself into your nature journal page

I first heard this expression from Mark Simmons. Mark is a nature journaler, comic artist, and curious kid in an adults clothes. The basic idea here is simple and makes a lot of sense. Basically including ourselves on our nature journal pages is essential because we are an essential part of the story. We can not be objective observers of nature. If we pretend to be objective we are actually being less truthful about the reality. Therefore, the most truthful thing we can do is to include ourselves and our experience on the page. Below you can see one of the simplest forms of this. Yes, it is a cartoon Marley Peifer.

All I did here was include a surprised cartoon version of myself. This shows my reaction to information in nature. In this case it was actually on online class. This type of cartoon of yourself is a great way to start parachuting yourself into your pages.

Ideas for Nature Journaling Yourself

First of all use words. For some reason it is really easy to just create a nature journal page that reads like a wikipedia page. Why?! Include more first person. Use statements such as “and then I thought I saw a lizard.” Or “I was distracted by my drawing, which I didn’t like, and almost didn’t notice the deer walking behind me.”
Secondly, practice cartoon drawings of yourself. This is the easiest way to draw yourself onto the page. You can practice this at home. This cartoon or stick figure can show your reactions to things such as above. In addition this stick figure can show scale next to a plant or animal see below.
Lastly, get meta. Nature journaling yourself has other benefits. You can vent on the pages and you can reflect on your thought process. For example: “I’m frustrated with how this drawing turned out.” or “I’m still struggling drawing birds.” These are ways to move beyond a mental obstacle and keep going. Trust me it helps. You can also draw an upset face next to a drawing that you didn’t like.

See the little black silhouette? That’s me. In this case the stick figure of yourself can show scale.

Want a more advanced way to nature journal your self?

The most advanced way to parachute yourself into your pages is to use more of a comics format. These can be done in the moment while nature journaling in the field or done from memory at home. Here is a page I did telling the story of how I broke my knee in a cloud forest in Costa Rica while trying to film an episode of the Nature Journal Show. These are the personal stories that we often don’t include in our nature journal pages but are so meaningful when we look back on them later.