Description
Spring Essentials for your Nature Journal
Session 2 of the Zoom Drawing Workshop Series · Botanical Sketchbook for All Seasons
Sunday, April 12, 2026: 1pm – 5pm ET
✏️ Instructors: Pam Thompson, Vern Fannin, &/ Sam McWilliams
✅ Level: All levels
🌱 Botanical Subject(s): Spring-friendly plants you can easily forage near home, including:
•Buds on branches, shrubs, trees, and emerging from the ground
•Spring flowers such as tulip, daffodil, crocus, dandelion, and other local blooms
•Fiddleheads and unfurling plant forms
•Young leaves full of soft textures and saturated greens
•Spring fungi and mushrooms
•Revisiting winter plants to see how they’ve changed
•Any local plants you discover this season, perfect for personal nature journaling
Workshop Description
Step into spring with fresh eyes, bright colors, and a sketchbook ready to capture every new leaf and blossom. In this joyful four-hour online workshop, we’ll explore the botanical magic of early growth, perfect for anyone wanting to deepen their connection with nature, expand their botanical illustration skills, or simply enjoy the creative energy of the season.
🌿 A Gentle, Joyful Approach to Nature Journaling
This workshop is stress-free, time-friendly, and adaptable to your creative goals. You can follow one plant through the seasons, track what’s growing in your garden, or let curiosity guide you to new spring discoveries. Whatever brings you joy, your sketchbook becomes a place to observe, reflect, and play.
🌱 Why Spring Is So Inspiring for Your Botanical Sketchbook
Spring is overflowing with forms that practically beg to be sketched—curled fiddleheads, opening buds, cheerful wildflowers, soft new leaves, and fungi pushing through the warming soil. These plants offer lively shapes, vibrant colors, and approachable complexity, making spring one of the most exciting seasons for nature sketching. Start off spring with a spring in your step, and savor the joy of appreciating seasonal changes in real time.
✏️ Skills You’ll Build in This Workshop
• Capturing Early Growth & Spring Shapes: Learn to sketch delicate curves, buds, petals, and unfolding forms with confidence and clarity.
• Watercolor & Colored Pencil Techniques for Vibrant Colors: Explore soft gradients, bright greens, and lively tonal shifts that make spring botanicals pop.
• Inking for Detail & Definition: Practice line work that enhances edges, textures, and the unique character of each plant.
• Seasonal Sketchbook Layout Ideas: Design journal pages that weave together drawings, observations, and notes to create your personal record of the season.
• Lettering & Notes for Nature Journaling: Use simple lettering styles to add interest, dates, plant names, and memorable details.
🍃 Join One Session or the Full Year
This workshop is one part of our four-session Botanical Sketchbook for All Seasons series. Each session is available individually, or you can enroll in all four at a discounted rate to stay motivated and creative throughout the year.
Why Join?
Our workshops are not just about learning but also about community and collaboration. Here’s what makes our Zoom Workshops special:
👩🎨Friendly Instructors: Our experienced and approachable instructors are passionate about botanical art and are dedicated to helping you succeed.
🎨Live Demonstrations: Watch and learn as we demonstrate each technique, making it easy for you to follow along and practice.
🖼️Constructive Feedback: Receive personalized feedback to help you improve and gain confidence in your artistic abilities.
🤝Interactive Environment: Engage with instructors and fellow participants, ask questions, and share your progress in a supportive and encouraging space.
🎥Session Recordings: Miss a session? Want to rewatch a lesson? No worries! After each session, you’ll get the recording delivered to your inbox, available for you to review anytime.
📹Pre-Recorded Videos: Access to pre-recorded videos to supplement your learning and practice at your own pace to help you feel prepared before we begin.
📧Email Support: If you watch the recordings after the live workshop has ended, you can still receive personalized feedback! Just send photos of your progress to info+images@drawbotanical.com, and an instructor will reply with compliments and constructive critiques.
IMPORTANT: Add info@drawbotanical.com to your email contacts! All workshop details will arrive in your inbox, including links to the Zoom meetings, pre-recorded videos, and slideshow.
After purchasing this workshop, you will receive an email with Registration Details. If you don’t see this email in your inbox a few hours after purchasing, search your inbox for our email address and check your spam/junk/quarantine folders. If you still can’t find it, email info@drawbotanical.com, and we will assist you.
Recommended Supplies:
What materials do I need for spring botanical sketching?
In addition to our “Bare Necessities” supplies, you will need:
- Your favorite watercolor or mixed media sketchbook. We recommend a Stillman & Birn Mixed Media (Zeta Series) Sketchbook. Some manageable sizes are: 8.5 x 5.5 inch Landscape, or 7.5 x 7.5 inch.
- Waterproof ink pens like Sakura Pigma Micron Pen – Black 005 (0.2mm) And 05 (0.45mm) (Or other sizes, but one thick and one thin is best).
- Travel water brush like Pentel Aquash Water Brush – Small or your favorite watercolor brush.
Find all of the supplies that we recommend here. Feel free to follow along with any supplies you have (your result may just end up looking a little different). Our lessons are about a combination of fundamental 3D art concepts and colored pencil and watercolor technique, so you can skip the supplies-specific tips and still learn a lot about art basics including perspective, light source, composition, etc. One of the main points we teach is colored pencil and watercolor technique for slow, continuous toning, but as long as you are able to achieve the same blending result with your chosen materials, you can still benefit from our course lessons.
FAQs
Q: Do I need to have taken the winter session to join the spring workshop?
A: NO, each session stands on its own. You can join in the spring and begin your sketchbook journey any time of year.
Q: Can I receive feedback from instructors after the workshop ends?
A: YES, if you watch the recordings after the live workshop has ended, you can still receive personalized feedback! Just send photos of your progress to info+images@drawbotanical.com, and an instructor will reply with compliments and constructive critiques.
Q: Will there be a recording of the workshop?
A: YES, all participants receive access to the workshop recording so you can review the demonstrations, pause while sketching, or revisit techniques anytime.
Q: Do I need any experience to join this spring sketchbooking session?
A: NO experience is required! This workshop is beginner-friendly and also great for experienced botanical artists. We’ll guide you step-by-step through spring drawing techniques that build confidence and skill.
Q: What kinds of spring plants will we draw in this workshop?
A: We’ll sketch spring buds, early flowers like tulips and daffodils, fiddleheads, young leaves, fungi, and other local spring plants. You may also revisit any winter subjects to observe their seasonal changes.
Q: What if I can’t find the same plants you use in the demo?
A: No problem! Spring offers plenty of options everywhere. You can sketch any locally available plant materials.
Cancellation Policy: Due to the virtual nature of this product, we cannot issue a refund. You will still receive all recordings from the workshop, and you can watch them at your convenience.
By purchasing this workshop, you agree to the following Media Release: I hereby give permission to Draw Botanical LLC to use photographs, videos, and/or audio recordings in which my picture or image appears for all purposes and in all media and formats now known or later created including, without limitation, all promotional materials. I hereby waive any right that I may have to inspect or approve the finished product or products or advertising or printed matter that may be used in connection with this video, audio or photographs or the use to which it may be applied.
I hereby irrevocably release and discharge Draw Botanical LLC and personnel from all claims, demands, and causes of action that I now have or in the future may have relating to the permitted use of my likeness.
I agree that Draw Botanical LLC will be the sole owner of all rights in the above-mentioned recordings. (Note: I maintain all rights to the work I create. Draw Botanical maintains all rights to the recorded content.) This release is governed in accordance with the laws of the State of New York.
