Inclusive Nature Journaling: Engaging All Senses and Abilities

 I will be honest and say that one of my reasons for recording my nature journaling experience on YouTube is because of the limitations and, what feels like the demise of social media platforms like Instagram.  Have you noticed lately how saturated IG has become with adverts? And not just multi national company ads but AI content generated adverts?  They are very eerie to watch.  Clearly they haven’t had much creative human input and adhere to a kind of formula almost.  However, I’m not here to open that can of worms.

With YouTube I can delve deeper with longer video footage and more chatting about why I am doing what I am.  My videos are in a dedicated space. I am not popping up in a scroll-a -thon of attention seeking, noisy reels shouting “look at me”.  My videos require an attention span of more than 30 seconds.  They may be boring to some but those are not the people I want to connect with. 

Nature journaling for everyone

 My videos do not try to sell anything. They are about the wholly therapeutic benefit to our wellbeing and mental health that art and being in nature can bring.  They are as much for my wellbeing as anyone else.  

Through my job with Enable Scotland I have experienced working with individuals who observe the world in significantly different ways.  Some people have physical disabilities which affect their ability to engage with the natural world in ways I have taken for granted in the past.  Other people have learning disabilities that impact their engagement with the natural world in ways that we may never truly get to know or understand.  I myself am beginning to have increasingly worse eyesight as I age and this impacts the details I can see and record with sketching and observing the natural world around us.  

So when I began thinking about learning how to nature journal, I thought about it from my own perspective initially.  Then I considered how I could make it something that didn’t require special materials, long journeys to outdoor places and huge amounts of physical exertion.  Starting with my own new back garden seemed like an ideal place.  For those without an outdoor space things can be grown in the home or accessed through local walks or even window boxes or little verandas.  Not everyone I know can go out on rural hikes or trips to different parts of the country.  But if we just look outside our windows onto our streets we can usually find some form of nature bursting through the concrete or tarmac of our pavements and roads. 

Using our senses

 We can use our senses to observe more closely what surrounds us.  Our eyesight can be aided with magnifiers.  If we have ailing eyes we can observe through smell.  The smell of wild garlic in the Spring time is always a welcome scent locally to me.  Or the scent of Buddleia just now is particularly strong.  Even the smell of manure around my local area tells me that the farmers are out in force.  With our ears we can hear yellow gorse crackling and popping due to the intense heat of summer in July/August.  The bird song changes distinctly during spring as they get busy foraging for nest building materials.  The chatter of the swifts and swallows becomes apparent as we rush headlong into summer and they occupy the high skies.  The sounds of tractors and lawnmowers tell us it is grass cutting season.  

If you have been watching my videos I do hope that you are enjoying them.  I am totally open to questions, comments or suggestions on anything related to our journey into nature journaling. It is an exciting adventure in my mind which can be enjoyed in all seasons and weathers.  The whole process is already fuelling my creativity and making me look at my art in different ways.   There are infinite ways to experience and create from what we observe.  In future episodes I hope to explore some more of the sensory aspects of my garden and how we can add to our journals through sketching but also adding texture and tactile elements.  

Till my next post! 

Collette x