Everywhere I turn outdoors, color greets my artist's eye. The lavish abundance of spring spills out over the canopies onto the forest floor and across every meadow. 
The songbirds who seemed just to eke out an existence all winter, hunched at the feeder, now whistle to each other, perk up tall and have sparkle.
Migrant songbirds add their color and variety of song. A Rose Breasted Grosbeak has the most unassuming call, yet causes my heart to race whenever he drops into the tree where my bird feeders hang.
I sat outside yesterday, with my Caran D'Ache Neocolor II crayons and a Pitt Artist's pen, and soaked up the colors and fresh growth around me.
At my feet sat my battered copy of The Peterson Field Guide to the Birds given to me by my grandparents when I was 17. I flicked through the pages to help me identify birds and to fill in the details of those who flashed in and left before I finished drawing them.
Each day, each hour, nature is putting on a show, and if we simply sit and watch, we get to see amazing things like Rose Breasted Grosbeaks and blooming pansies, or even subtle things like the tiniest spider spinning a web on my spearmint plant.
In my nature journal, I can record these amazing sights, and wonder on paper what that tiny spider, whose body is a quarter the size of a peppercorn, might eat -- gnats? aphids??
All the while, I find the experience grounding, relaxing, & restorative.
And all the while I am practicing my drawing and observation skills.
I hope you get 20 minutes this week to sit and observe nature, and make sketches in your nature journal. I think you'll be glad you did.
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