Welcome to Weeks #203–206 of Might Could Draw Today (MCDT)! I’m here to invite you to draw with me today!

👋 If you’re new here: I started MCDT in 2016 and through its various iterations, it has spurred the creation of over 20,000 pieces of art by hundreds of artists from around the world! A new set of art prompts are delivered the first week of every month. For 2023, our prompts will all revolve around nature journaling. Join us!

Some nature drawings of mine from January.

Hey, y’all!

Welcome to our first month of MCDT for 2023! Before we dive in, let me apologize for missing last week’s essay—Covid finally caught me! It was my first time having it, but thankfully I just had flu-like symptoms for a couple days. Then I spent the weekend staying inside doing puzzles and watching movies with Butterbean. I now know all the words to every Frozen song (1 and 2!), so… there’s that. Anyways! I’m glad to be feeling well again and back here at my desk writing and drawing!

To prepare for my new adventure in nature journaling, I ordered the book The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling, by the naturalist, artist, and educator John Muir Laws. Once I got the book, it was a bit more focused on “how to draw” than I wanted, but as I started reading it, I found it more and more enticing.

A snapshot from my very first nature journal walk (with Oni booty)!

Just as with my writing practice, I’ve been feeling (and desiring?) a shift in my drawing practice. I’m still figuring it out, but I feel more open to exploring new ways of drawing and using my drawing practice to get myself outdoors and connect with nature. Getting out of my own head for a little bit, you know?

Nature Journal Pages

So here’s my plan for our new MCDT adventure: I aim to create four nature journal pages each month. Sometimes I might do one a week, and sometimes all four my happen in one week. Each week will have a different theme to guide us on what to look for when we go out on our walks. Here is an example of a nature journal page that I love by John Muir Laws:

Many nature journalists draw pretty realistically, as in the example above. But to me, that’s not the point. The goal is to notice and wonder and see the world around us and to jot it down how we see it. The artwork above shows how John Muir Laws sees the world (which is gorgeous and amazing)—but it’s not the only way of seeing.

A scientist may need to record an animal or plant as close to real life as possible, but I’m not a scientist, I’m an artist. And I’m not drawing these pages for anybody but myself. So I’ll be walking the line of what I see with my eyes and what I see with my eyes, mind, and heart. We can observe and draw from nature, and still do it in our own unique way.

And my very first attempt at a nature journal page! This page uses a bird reference from John Muir’s book, *The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling*.

Above is my very first attempt at drawing a full nature journal page. Yay! As we all know, the first time is often the hardest. So I took it easy on myself to dip my toes in, and allowed myself to use a reference from The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling. But my training wheels are off now, and my next page will be my own observiations from out in the wild, y’all!

So! Here are our themes for February below. It can be overwhelming to look out at all the trees, plants, and everything around us—how do we choose what to draw?! So I hope a loose idea will narrow our focus a bit and maybe lead us down some interesting paths. Of course, if you see something you want to draw outside this theme, ignore me and do your thing!

February MCDT Prompts

My goal is to go on hikes and nature walks to find and draw these things in real life, but if that is not possible for you—and I’m sure it won’t always be possible for me either!—feel free to use photo references. :)

Week 203: Five Leaves

Jan. 30–Feb. 5, 2023
Find and draw 5 different leaves. They could be alive on a branch, or crumpled up on the ground. Think about the phrases: I Notice, I Wonder, and It Reminds Me Of (common among many nature journalists).

Week 204: A Creek

Feb. 6–12, 2023
Walk to a nearby creek (or other body of water) and draw any portion(s) of the creek you wish. Perhaps a bend, a rock, a fish, or long pieces of grass along the water.

Week 205: Three Views of One Bird

Feb. 13–19, 2023
On your nature hike, try to find a bird to observe. Sketch it as quickly as you can, trying to get it down in different poses or activities. If it flies off before you’re done, fill in the gaps from memory or find another! You can finish the drawings later after quick live sketches.

Week 206: Tracks or Footprints

Feb. 20–26, 2023
This time, look down while you walk! Do you see any animal tracks in the mud or dirt? Or shoeprints from other hikers or walkers? Who do you think left these tracks? Where were they going? How old are the tracks? Are you leaving tracks behind too?

Artwork from January’s MCDT Live drawing event by (in clockwise order): Nikki Hemady, Craig Austin, Beth Tyerman, and Colleen Thiso.

Share your art with us!

Thank you to everyone who shared their nature art with us in January! Drawing the same thing collectively is all the more fun when we can share and see each other’s work. If you’re a paid subscriber, you can share your drawings and photos with us all month long in our private community, Studiomates!

Already a member? Share your art here!

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And draw with us live!

Our next MCDT Live is Wednesday, Feb. 22 from 7:30–8:30pm ET. This months’s hint for what we’ll be drawing is: ⛷

MCDT Live is a casual, online meet-up for anyone who wants to dedicate some creative time to their calendar and socialize with other artists from around the world! I usually have some 2-3 drawing references and ideas that we split into segments to give us all a jumpstart on what to draw!

RSVP and get the Zoom link here. Not a Studiomates member yet? Get access when you upgrade to a paid subscription here (it’s still 50% for 1 more day!).

So, whether you’re drawing from photos in your warm house, drawing in the wild on a nature hike, or drawing on Zoom with us live… grab your sketchbook and let’s draw!

Can’t wait to see what you come up with, and I’ll be back Monday, Feb. 27 to share what I made and our March prompts—an exciting time to draw as everything here in the Eastern US starts to come out of a winter freeze!

<3,
Christine

MCDT Art Prompts: February