On the Journaling with Nature Podcast
The Journaling with Nature podcast site: https://www.journalingwithnature.com/
A Comforting Listen
If you’ve ever craved a relaxing podcast that puts you outside even if you can’t physically be outside, that inspires you to pick up the art supplies, and feels like a warm mug of coffee or a comforting blanket on a cold morning, I’d highly recommend the Journaling with Nature podcast.
I’ve been a listener of the Journaling with Nature podcast since about September 2020, and a fan of Bethan Burton, the host of the podcast since about June 2020 when I started discovering nature journalling.
Chatting with Bethan
So, naturally, I was beyond excited for the opportunity to chat with Bethan Burton for the Journalling with Nature podcast.
The podcast was published on Monday 11 April 2022, and I really should have written about it sooner.
In it we talk about my early experiences with nature and creativity, how nature journalling has helped me see so much more in nature, my experience travelling to and nature journalling on Christmas Island, sketching while camping in Central Australia, and the Flinders Ranges, why I love to travel, my approach to sketching and painting among other things.
I had a lot of fun and it was so easy chatting with Bethan.
Link to the episode: https://www.journalingwithnature.com/podcasts/episode-85-talweez-senghera
Why I Love the Podcast
Bethan is an excellent podcaster, and through her now 98 episodes (as of 22 August 2022), she has hosted a wide range of nature journalers, teachers, illustrators, writers, artists who all come to her podcast with an amazingly diverse range of perspectives and approaches to nature journalling.
When I want something to listen to on a reflective morning, while slowly sipping a tea or coffee, hers is the podcast I turn to.
It has been a comforting companion on mornings on a balcony staring out at the Christmas Island township and the ocean beyond, on cool evenings at a campsite or in my sleeping bag in the Central Australian desert, on cosy afternoons painting, or lazy days at home just chilling.
Varied and Interesting Guests
Some of her guests use nature journalling to enhance their professional, creative or conservation work, and for others it is a practice they engage in outside of their profession, but that adds something special to their enjoyment and appreciation of the world. They’ve also often come to nature journalling in very different ways.
Another thing I absolutely love about it is that her guests are from all over the world. This makes for an interesting, informative listen every time.
Her guests have included high profile nature journallers and artists - these are people I knew of from books, or Instagram, or who have online courses on nature sketching and journalling, and/or are very active in the nature journalling and sketching communities online.
People like John Muir Laws, the writer of three key books on nature journalling himself and the reason I even know the term ‘nature journalling’. Wonderful artists and teachers like Rosalie Haizlett and Julia Bausenhardt whose courses on Skillshare I love, Jane Blundell and Paula Peeters whose interesting and useful blogs I follow. Lee Angold and Vitor Velez whose work I admire.
Then she has wonderfully inspirational nature journallers who I didn’t know about before but have such wonderful stories. There are too many of these to list all of them but here are just a few that have stuck with me:
Episode 3 with Bronwyn Smith where they talk about life and sketching on Shetland island (somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for a long long time, and I’m sure I’ll get to someday)
Episode 52 with Sabrina Deschamps who uses makeup in her exploration of the natural world
Episode 75 with Gargi Chugh which was fascinating for the highly curious and analytical perspective she brings to her journalling
Worth a Listen
There hasn’t been an episode that I didn’t find interesting, and there are admittedly (though I am not sad about this) a few I haven’t listened to yet.
It just means there is more for me to listen to, which like a book I’m savouring, is such a wonderful feeling - to know there is more to come.
If you haven’t listened to the podcast before, I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you enjoy nature, sketching, nature journalling and anything in that realm, I’m sure you’ll love the Journaling with Nature podcast as much as I do.
A huge thank you to Bethan for all that she does, for putting out this lovely comforting podcast and resource, and for the lovely chat.