Cycles of Life for INJW 2024

This year for International Nature Journaling Week we explored the cycles of life. Every day there was a different theme, with a lot of motivating videos, prompts, ideas and some "Journal Together" sessions (instead of workshops).

Here are my pages and the reasons for choosing the subjects I did for each day:

For Day 1 Germination and emergence I wanted to learn more about germination and discover what the difference between a seed and a spore was. The weather during the week was not great, so I didn't actually do as much 'live' nature journaling as I would have liked. Most of the days came from doing research and using photos. I tried to include what I'd been noticing around me as well.

On the second day we had a big storm during the night and I again followed my curiosity to research "how storms develop", for Growth and development. For Day 3 Metamorphosis and transformation I joined the Journal Together session where Bethan was discussing a butterfly and I decided to focus on a moth that I'd taken a photo of recently and had uploaded to iNaturalist that had been identified. I liked that I could then see photos of it's larval stage (caterpillar) and learn more about this particular species.

I already knew I wanted to do spiny leaf insects for Day 4 Reproduction and replication, since I'd discovered that they can essentially clone themselves through parthenogenesis. There was a lot of useful information on the Australian Museum website and I think the photo I drew is from there too. The next day I took my own video footage of the spiny leaf insects at the Centre and I hope to finish a video on my nature journaling of it soon.

I'd already shared one example of Fruiting and dispersion in the video compilation and wasn't entirely sure what else to nature journal, so came up with some Australian examples and then got stuck on another journey about what fruit is and different methods of dispersal.

On Day 6 Decomposition and decay I finally did some live nature journaling of my worm farm. I didn't see much unfortunately, perhaps because it was during the day. I feel like I have seen more biodiversity in there at other times.

For the final day Renewal and regeneration I felt drawn to how eucalypts can survive fires by resprouting from lignotubers. While reading an Australian Geographic article I admired the photo of the glowing tree bark and decided to add that to my page with watercolour pencils. I was also reminded of a phoenix rising from the ashes so I wanted to include that but with a kookaburra twist! 😆

I felt reinvigorated myself doing all this nature journaling, and wanted to keep up the habit of at least drawing daily. So far it's not quite daily, but it's still a lot more than I usually do and I'm motivated to do more.