Fall leaves nature journal

The leaves are finally starting to turn riot in Central Park. Watching them turn always reminds me of a tradition C.Z. and I had in our early days of homeschooling. Anyone could think of it, no doubt, but what I like about it is that though it is extremely simple, it isn't dumbed down or silly in the least. A child (or even an adult) can do as much or as little with it as he likes, and it's a good exercise in observation. I think Charlotte Mason would approve!

• The procedure is simple enough. You take a walk in the park and gather a few leaves. Of course, C.Z. preferred to gather a few hundred, but after a while I'd say, "Well, okay, but you'll have to carry them, and...hmm, do you suppose maybe we should leave a few for the other children?" (Young New Yorkers have to learn very early to share with a few million people.) So, we tried to come home with only our very favorites.

These was one of the last leaf pages we did, after C.Z. had already learned to mix colors pretty well.

• When you get home, have the pencils, watercolors, field guides and paper ready. Children soon learn that leaves shrivel overnight, and parents soon get busy with other things, like dinner.

• Place a leaf on a piece of paper. Sometimes we used sketch pad paper, but often enough, we used printer paper, because that's what we had. After a while, we learned to arrange several leaves on the paper to create a composition. Trace the leaf's outline with a pencil.

• Get out the colors and try to imitate what's going on in the leaf. Here, it might help to know basic color mixing. Not only do blue and yellow make green, but they look better mixed loosely on the paper than dutifully colored with a straight green pencil. Brown leaves usually have a lot of bright yellow shining through. And a touch of contrasting color, like red or blue, often makes the shadows look interesting, but too much muddies the color. But don't be afraid to mess up. Experimenting is half the fun, and the beauty of it is, you can always get more leaves and paper!

• Sometimes we used more pencils, sometimes more watercolor, and sometimes we used both. And sometimes we looked at D'Aulaire books for color-mixing ideas. I feel fairly confident suggesting that you can do this, because C.Z. doesn't consider herself to be a particularly good draftsman, but tracing the leaves gave her just the right amount of encouragement to do the rest.

• After you've done all that observation through tracing and coloring, identify the leaf. Many leaves are easy enough to identify with a field guide--the maples, the oaks, and gingkos, for instance. But we eventually came across a few that stumped us, like the ailanthus that hung over our old building's back patio. Eventually we learned to bring home a bit of the seed pod from the park if it was available, or to take a good look at the tree's bark. Since we were usually in a public park, and at any rate shared all our trees with others, we only took leaves that were on the ground, and we didn't shave off any bark. So we had to be very observant on the spot.

To be honest, we're still not 100% sure this is an ailanthus leaf, but we learned a lot about shapes and pods while trying to identify a branch that fell onto our building's patio!

• Then we wrote the name of the leaf below the drawing. C.Z. was not enthusiastic on the subject of penmanship or spelling as a young child, so sometimes this was the hardest part, but it did give her practice using something real, and to this day we know what some of these leaves are only because she took the trouble to label them the day we brought them home.

• When we finished, we simply slipped the pages into a small notebook with plastic sleeves. We added a few pages each year for three or four years. In the end, we had a nice little leaf nature journal, and lots of happy memories of crunching and sloshing (depending on the weather) through leaves on fall days in the park.

The opening page to C.Z.'s old leaf notebook

(You can tell she already had strong opinions about the colors of her letters.)

I'm sure New York City isn't the first place most people think of when they consider nature education. (For one thing, kids aren't even allowed to climb the trees, and even the prospect of jumping in a pile of leaves can be unsavory considering some of the trash one finds underneath.) And I've heard more than one New Yorker proudly claim to have no interest in nature whatsoever. But our family has always liked nature, and the challenge of finding nature in New York City rather invigorated us than defeated us. We've always been a little contrary, but really, it's not nearly so much the pleasure of being obstinate that drives us outdoors as the smell of wet leaves, and the jewel-like contrast of bright red maple leaves with their gray surroundings of fog, looming park rocks, and sodden sky.

The simple life, as applied to scrapbooking

1 Unless the LORD builds the house, 

       its builders labor in vain. 
       Unless the LORD watches over the city, 
       the watchmen stand guard in vain.

 2 In vain you rise early 
       and stay up late, 
       toiling for food to eat— 
       for he grants sleep to ^[a] those he loves.

--Psalm 127

There's a reason that I say in my profile that I desire to live a simple life in a complicated city.  It's a reminder to myself that I haven't always even known that was a thing that one could do.  It takes conscious effort.  And reminders.   

My scrapbooking hobby is an example of this principle in microcosm. I've kept photo albums since I married in 1987.  The first ones were nothing more than taped down photos with some journaling in black pen.  But I have accumulated a whole shelf full of these albums now, chronicling three cities, a whole parade of local friends who have come and gone, out-of-town visitors to our home, the cycle of seasons from the vantage point of the city's parks, trips to concerts and museums, visits to Georgia that occur like clockwork in summer and at Christmas, vacations, some homeschooling projects, violin recitals (which really don't work with the format, but still, they happen) and of course, a growing child.  No one looks at them but us.  But I keep doing them, because they remind me that time passes and that I should savor each year.

My process is very simple.  It has to be, because I only do this about twice a year for a few days per session.  It is:  Cull photos and group into spreads.  Choose paper that picks up the colors in the photos.  Do the basic layout and get everything taped down (because having photos fall out every time you pick up an album is a deterrent to looking), journal before I forget what happened, and then, if there's time, add some embellishments.  There's rarely time to really finish things, and most of my albums are very simple.  Since I use tan pages, many times I just arrange the photos and label them.  Period.  And put all those little tickets, notes, and programs in pocket pages. 

 

This is about as complicated as my scrapbook pages get

Well, while I took a break to paint a portrait for two years, the entire scrapbooking industry changed on me.  I don't mean that my album color was discontinued; that always happens.  I mean that the whole industry proliferated, became professionalized, and got much glossier than my ability to keep up with it (much like the homeschooling community).  When I finally got back to my safe, limited Creative Memories website, none of the handy little sleeves that I'd always put drawings and tickets in existed anymore.  They had added digital products.  The other sites I went to were about downloading and printing out fonts, inserting brads, sewing, buttons, ribbons, journaling right on top of the photos, tags with vague but empowering sentiments on them, and the pages were usually organized around one glossy black and white photo per page.  Help!  Where did my humble little hobby go?

My pastor, Dr. Keller, says that New Yorkers have to realize our need for grace more than any people, because back in Peoria, we used to think we were the best vocalist in town, but then we came to New York and realized with chagrin that the musicians in the subway were better than we were.  Well, Dr. Keller, it's even worse than that:  The musicians in Peoria are pretty good, too!  (With my apologies to Peoria, which is no doubt a fine place.)  

Every woman these days is a professional level photographer, an ace scrapbooker, a Martha Stewart in the kitchen, sews her own adorable kids' clothes, encourages the downtrodden, and is somewhere in the midst of running a co-op and teaching her six children the classical canon. Oh, and on the side she is also a political pundit who keeps up with current events and comments with style and wit.  Did I mention that she hosts dinner parties?  Is always a proactive parent?  Has a profitable side business on Etsy?  And of course, if she lives in Manhattan, the kids are headed for the Ivy League.  

Do you see how quickly my mind can take a simple thing like wanting to document a vacation and blow it all out of proportion?  This is why I say on my profile that I desire to live a simple life in a complicated city.  It's not an accomplishment; it's very much a reminder that the simple life is a work in progress.  No one, and I mean no one, can have everything.  

My real-life and online friend Susan once mentioned to me that there was a such thing as an HSP, or high sensitive person. (I'll let her tell you how that applies to her if she likes, or not.) Intrigued, I looked it up.  It's a book by Elaine Aronson, and there's a website, with a test.  I scored just about 100 on that test.  At last, I'm an overachiever!--at getting all worked up and needing to take a deep breath. 

So this is your reminder, in case you needed one.  It's not a contest.