When the 2020 pandemic forced everyone to stay home, it felt frustratingly familiar. Crohn's disease had already put me on house arrest in 2019. I gave up traveling, weekend exploring and watching our daughters compete in soccer games while waiting for surgery and facing a long recovery.
Being shouldered into slow-lane life required a creative project to override worries and to keep me focused on what I had, rather than what was missing. Cracking open a 3- by 5-inch pocket sketchbook, I vowed to work on my drawing skills and chronicle the beauty within our own backyard. With tentative pencil lines, I began replicating shapes and patterns as we cycled from crabapple blossoms and unfurling ferns to trillium, iris and lilies.
With each page, new confidence and skills emerged as I learned to show texture and folds in papery poppies and blowzy peonies or depth in the megaphone flare of morning glories. My writing circled flowers, slanted across pages or rimmed their edges while explaining the origins of our flowers and connection to them.
A garden sketchbook helped me be mindful in ways that photography, with almost-instant gratification, never did.
You can create a sketchbook tailored to your own interests, such as favorite trees, birds at the feeder or tiny creatures, from spiders with intricate webs to bees, caterpillars and butterflies. Capture the evolution of vegetables from seedlings to succulent ingredients. Experiment with art supplies, such as a watercolor travel set and water brushes or layers of colored pencil.
When finished, a themed sketchbook documents the growing season's daily marvels and becomes a cherished souvenir from the gift of slowing down.
Lisa Meyers McClintick is a St. Cloud-based freelance writer and photographer specializing in travel, gardening and art.
