My Second Year of Blogging

11/5/12

As a city girl, documenting flowers and leaves is not really my thing, but I still find the hand-illustrated nature journals of others delightful. Published nature journals such as The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden and the contemporary A Life In Hand: Creating the Illuminated Journal by Hannah Hinchman were inspiring to me even before I began sketching.

4/1/13

My urban sketchbook is not what I would call a nature journal in any way, nor do I use it to systematically record natural events. But because I sketch something every day, over the course of time, my sketchbook does tend to document the patterns of nature by default. Now that I’ve been sketching for two-and-a-half years, I’m already seeing the cyclical repetitions. If I’m curious about when the cherry trees were in full bloom last year, all it takes is a quick scan through my sketchbook of that period (or, even easier, through my blog). When I compare the sketches of the same stand of maples at Green Lake in the fall, I see that they lost their leaves much earlier in the season last year compared to 2012. Sketches of

4/29/13

neighborhood trees in all seasons, the returning mergansers, a brood of young geese, beachcombers during the year’s lowest low tide – they’re all things I’ll likely sketch again and again, year after year.

Two years ago today, Fueled by Clouds & Coffee went live. I could hardly say that my blog is in any way similar to the diary of an Edwardian lady. But like Edith Holden’s journal, my blog has become a record of happenings in a tiny part of the world as observed by one person. I thoroughly enjoy sharing those observations, and if you enjoy them too, then that’s a bonus.

8/27/13

Thanks for reading! And onward to another year of blogging.