Too wet for watercolor…

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The cabin fever was setting in…

l had been editing videos for several days. Giant machinery rumbled just outside of my tiny hotel room, generators roared, and men shouted. All day long. The main sewer line under the road was being replaced. Precisely during the days that I was scheduled to stay at this hotel in Bocas del Toro catching up on computer work.

Getting out and doing a watercolor landscape will cure me!

I’m on a beautiful Caribbean island after all. It seems like a crime to stay cramped in my dingy room suffering through the construction noise. So I got all my stuff ready to go out and do some watercolor landscape painting and make a video about it. Should I bring my waterproof stuff just in case?

When nature journaling in rainy areas it is good to always have a waterproof option with you. Unpredictable downpours could spell disaster if you are caught outside with your nature journaling stuff and have no way to protect it. One of my biggest fears is that a mostly full journal will get soaked or that my watercolor palette will be destroyed. Can you imagine a whole watercolor palette getting soaked and all the colors just dissolving and smearing all over the place?

Here is what my current system looks like

My current system is to have a waterproof backpack that my entire normal nature journaling kit can fit inside of if it starts raining. I can pull it back out if the rain stops. While it is raining I can use my Rite in the Rain sketchbook and a soft pencil.

It was sunny with a few clouds when I left my hotel room. But by the time I had biked half way to my destination the sky was turning dark and threatening rain. As it started to drizzle I preemptively packed away everything sensitive into my waterproof bag and got all my waterproof stuff ready for action near the top.

Get ready before it starts pouring

In many parts of the world rain can start off very powerful and it is easy to get caught off guard. If you can get setup for rainy nature journaling and stash away your susceptible gear before the big drops start falling that would be good. However, there is a danger here because on the other end of the spectrum you could stash away all your supplies as soon as you see the first cloud in the sky. This would be a great rationalization for the saboteur and procrastinator inside you to avoid nature journaling at all...

Never too wet for nature journaling…

Even if you don’t use color and your waterproof pages look like scribbles you will probably be glad that you nature journaled in the rain. The hardest part is starting. Once you are going for a while and once you are wet you will start having fun. Even when the nature journaling part is not super fun you will be happy after. Scroll down if you want tips for nature journaling on rainy days that don’t involve getting wet.