Assignment: Patterns Lens

Learning from Nature: Pattern Lens

As a reminder...

Each week you'll be asked to repeat the following steps:

  1. Visit your personally selected place in nature. 
  2. Spend at least 20 minutes in your place observing nature using the guiding questions I will provide to you each week (SEE STEPS BELOW).
  3. Document your observational experiences in a small notebook devoted to this activity (your nature journal).
  4. Supplement written notes with quick and detailed sketches, paintings, etc.
  5. Capture photographic images to document your observation process. Photos can be of your place and it's organisms, you, as well as your sketches and your journal itself. Be creative!

 

THIS WEEK: PATTERN LENS

  • Go outside.
  • Take a wander. (Be sure to wander in a place that you'll have access to for the next few weeks!)
  • Find a place. Identify a spot that feels good (safe and free of interruptions) and piques your interest or evokes a connection with you. A place with more natural surroundings is ideal (vs. concrete) but any place will do.
  • Get settled. Sit. Relax.
  • Take several deep breaths. Breathe.
  • Quiet your cleverness (meaning, slow your mind; try to receive rather than project)
  • Open your eyes. Open each of your senses! Don't forget to smell, touch, hear, and, yes, even taste your surroundings.
  • Observe. Spend at least 20 minutes taking in your natural surroundings.
  • Focus. Do not give up. Stay with it. Try to focus on something and just watch it. Really observe your place and its inhabitants. (SEE GUIDING QUESTIONS BELOW)
  • After 20 minutes, begin to document your observations in your notebook/journal. (You’ll want to make lots of notes, bulleted lists, diagrams, and sketches, etc., because you’ll be creating a blog post from your nature journal notes. This will help us to know your observation and journaling process.)
  • Note the date, time, location, weather, wind, cloud conditions
  • Follow your guiding questions below
  • Make quick sketches
  • Make detailed drawings
  • Make lists to organize your thoughts
  • Take pictures
  • Leave you place just as you found it and go back inside when you’re ready.

Some guiding questions to stimulate your PATTERN LENS observations:

  • Where do you see patterns in your place?
  • Do you see repeated shapes, structures, processes, etc.?
  • Can you find example of the golden ratio?
  • Do you see spirals? Fractals (repeated branching patterns)?