How to Keep a Naturalist's Notebook

As a kid, I was never a big fan of nature except for the beach and river. As an adult, I'm trying to connect more with nature and thought a nature journal would be great because I already am an avid journaler. This was the perfect book to start with. It has basic techniques for how to draw things.What I didn't love was the seemingly endless talk about "bins" (birder slang for binoculars). Compared to the other topics of the book, I felt like she went too much into detail about the binoculars and too little detail into how to (for example) add color to your drawings. Don't get me wrong, getting a good set of binoculars is a good idea, but for this starter naturalist it was a bit much. I ended up dozing off and losing focus.As for the Kindle edition, I always appreciate when books have page numbers instead of the awkward Kindle location, and this one has page numbers. Plus, the footnotes pop up instead of taking you to another page. At least for me, it's distracting when a footnote jumps to another page. So, I really appreciated that this book had the pop-up footnotes.Apart from that, I only found one typo. I didn't even write it down because it simply needed a space. It didn't affect my reading experience at all.All in all, I give this book 4.5 stars but since I really enjoyed it, I'm rounding it up. I recommend this book to anyone like me, who is interested in starting a nature journal.

Very approachable and intimidating guide to creating a variety of types of nature journal. Totally non-fussy in it's approach. Provides excellent tips on equipment, elementary drawing techniques, observation, field guides, and varied goals for different types of field notes. Interspersed through the books are useful exercises to practice these techniques. The book has an excellent reference list at the back.

This guide is just what I am looking for to keep me energized. I am a New York City naturalist with serious art training as a child. I was raised half a block from Central Park in a building adjacent to the Guggenheim. When 17, I spent a summer living with the Shipibo Indians in Peru's jungles. I have spent a good portion of my professional life (as a university professor with camera and sketchbook in hand) traveling in 40+ countries. I have a science background so I know the difference between birds, trees, and tectonic plates. Tomlinson offers practical insights for lifelong marginally trained sketchers like me. My First pass through the book took two hours -- very stimulating! Now that I know what she is doing, I wiLl return to the book and give it the serious attention it deserves.

This is a great book for beginning artists, journalists, bird watchers and Naturalists. The instructions are specific, patient, detailed and persistently optimistic. No jumping from a couple of basic sketches to a 'Ta-Da' full blown colored and shaded 3D image leaving the reader wondering how the heck do I get from the last sketch to That? For me, the book was worth purchasing just for the instruction on how to focus and use binoculars, something no instruction book that came with my binoculars could do. It is a great book to help anyone to open their eyes to the nature that surrounds them, while also teaching how to record what one sees and feels.

I hike near my home and keep a journal. This book gave me simple techniques for tracking details like weather and for drawing that will make my journals helpful when I look back and see what was happening around me in earlier seasons and years. The author bases her book on techniques that she has used with her beginning field science college classes. As she is a scientist, an artist, and a teacher she marries the three areas seamlessly. Her students complain at the beginning of class that they can't draw (and, I make the same complaint), but she describes exercises you can do that make drawing easier. And, she really likes birds, so her bird drawing lessons are spot on.She knows the important distinction between drawing and merely taking a picture (something that I rely too heavily on). When you draw, you notice details: are the leaves are opposite or alternate? does the flower have 6 petals or 5? is the salamander is all black or does it have a stripe down its back.This book is short, intelligent, simple, well-written, and illustrated with examples both black and white and in color taken from both the author's journals and those of her students.If you hike, if you like to journal, if you want ideas for how to journal, this book is the best on the market.

Too much pencil drawings for me. Way too plain and basic drawings. I can already do stuff like this. I thought it would be more watercolor. I expected prettier.

Wonderful ideas on how to go about starting a nature journal. I've written journals for a good part of my life, but writing a nature journal is so much more rewarding! It makes you slow down and really LOOK at what is happening around you outside. You start to inquire about new things and learn more about our natural world. The more we do this, the more we realize how precious all life is. Take a walk on the wilder side of life and explore the beauty of nature around you, then write about it so it stays with you, and inspires others. This is a great tool to do with children as well!

Love this book! Exactly what I was looking for, thank you.