I like to think of field arts

as the ways we translate the language of the wild into something we can understand and love . . .

Writing in our field notebooks . . .

Sketching . . .

Watercoloring in situ . . .

Nature journaling . . .

Observing and recording . . .

Field arts use primitive tools, compared to high-tech things such as cameras and apps:

A pen or pencil and paper . . .

A few pigments and some water . . .

Field arts use our brains in ways our cameras and phones cannot approach:

To study something, to draw it or map it or explain it, one must

See, not just look . . .

One learns the very essence of what makes the leaf or the flower,

the deer or the house wren . . .

Field arts use our senses to interpret the wild:

Identification skills . . .

Tracking animals and

reading the signs of their passing . . .

Mapping landscapes . . .

Field arts are not gained overnight, not through instant-knowledge from technology . . . The clip below is from a website aimed at young people interested in conservation and fieldwork careers; it suggests apps that can turn you into a “wilderness expert” and also that you find someone to be your mentor. The latter is a good idea, but really the only thing that will gain you field arts and science skills is to get out and practice them. A lot, and for years. Taking classes and studying. A mentor is valuable, but they can’t mind-meld everything they know to a newbie . . . it took them years to learn, and it should take us as well.