Page by page, illustrated journals recognize the interpretive encounters so foundational to worldmaking and, in doing so, cultivate the deep attention to, and experience of, the world that is our first step toward care.
— Lyn K. Baldwin
In Drawing Care: The Illustrated Journal’s “Path to Place”,
Lyn K. Baldwin explains how illustrated journals can reinvigorate peoples’ experience with “place”.
Baldwin is a plant ecologist at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. She researches how to use drawing as a learning tool to learn about nature and place. Baldwin’s research into this subject began when she realized the demand for care required tools she never learned while training to be an ecologist.
Baldwin believes humans have thought their way out of nature and that “there is no guarantee that thinking alone will lead us back” (Baldwin, 2018). She feels the most effective way people can change their relationship with place is by keeping a journal. Specifically, an illustrated resonant journal.
What is a resonant journal?
In her article, Baldwin discusses four types of journals people use to record the world around them. In her discussion, she refers to the “scale of journals” as defined by artist and author, Hannah Hinchman. Baldwin explains that at one end of Hinchman’s scale, we find informational journals (e.g., a biologist’s field notebook). Next along the scale are investigative journals, journals with observations accompanied by fewer details normally found in informational journals. Investigative journals are followed by resonant journals which are journals composed of a person’s outward observations intermingled with their inner thoughts. The last journal type on Hinchman’s scale are reflective journals (e.g., personal diaries).
Baldwin argues that illustrated resonant journals are the key tool capable of combating the “extinction of experience” (Baldwin, 2018), which refers the ever-increasing divide between people and nature. She says illustrated resonant journals are the best tool to use because they include a drawing component. She explains that it is the act of drawing that pushed informational journals towards becoming resonant journals and that drawing helped “resonant journals gain their footings as a creative practice capable of remaking the world” (Baldwin, 2018). Baldwin explains that drawing enhances a person’s experience with place because drawing:
- Makes seeing more important than looking.
- Allows more of the world to make an impression on one’s consciousness.
- Literally draws a person into a place and experience.
Baldwin believes illustrated resonant journals could “repopulate nature” (Baldwin, 2018) and create stronger connections to place than scientific observations and species lists could ever do on their own.
Baldwin concludes her article by describing five journaling exercises teachers can teach to their students. These exercises are suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. Baldwin emphasizes that with these exercises, the process is more important than the product. She shares these specific exercises because, during her lengthy career as a journaling instructor, she has seen these writing and drawing exercises enhance student experience of place in only a few hours. These exercises are a wonderful addition to your art and science file folder and are just in time for Earth Day 2018. Obtain a copy of Baldwin’s article to receive instructions for:
- Illuminated contour drawings
- Color swatches and sound tapestries
- Landscape drawing
- Odd Couples (a writing exercise that adds energy to sentences)
- Titles (an exercise in lettering and writing titles)
Selected examples of these activities follows:
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Baldwin’s article Drawing Care is available on the website of the Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism. (Black & white illustrations, $42.50 for 24-hour access).
A color copy of Baldwin’s unpublished manuscript is available on the Thompson Rivers University’s repository for FREE. The link to this article is included here compliments of Lyn Baldwin.
Also courtesy of Lyn Baldwin is a link to free downloads of her published article. This publisher-supplied link allows for only 50 downloads. After fifty copies are downloaded, the article will cost $42.50 for 24-hour access or $154.00 for 30-day access.
I would like to thank Lyn for her generosity and for sharing these links with ArtPlantae readers.
Literature Cited
Baldwin, L. K. (2018). Drawing care: the illustrated journal’s “path to place”. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 18(1): 75-93
More from Lyn Baldwin
- Learning from field journals
- Do art and botany need each other?
- Students overcome their fear of drawing in botany lab
- Finding Place through Art and Science: The Field Journals of Lyn Baldwin
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