Our major focus of our Renaissance study is the Renaissance Man, himself, Leonardo da Vinci.
How did he earn that distinction? While growing up in a time marked by returning to the antiquities, he did more than that.
Da Vinci helped pave the way to new techniques, elevating the past.
Leonardo da Vinci sketched in Nature Journals when he was Young
Rising even above his art master and gleaning ideas to hallmark the Renaissance, began with his nature journals that he kept as a little boy.
Curious about the world around him, he sketched everything he saw from birds to plants.
Wanting to be as accurate in his drawings as possible led to his becoming a masterful artist.
The attention to detail required for his masterful commissions were honed by drawing while out in nature.
The angel wings he drew, painted, or sculpted so beautifully resulted from his ardent practice in perfectly capturing every detail of the birds he found flying and hopping about in the wild.
Drawing throughout the day, he learned the value of light and dark, of shadows that shift by the movement of the sun and clouds.
Varying his location from within a dark forest to an open sun-lit field yielded expanded studies into the effect of lighting within art.
Apprenticeship to Master
While training as an apprentice, his daily tasks included cleaning the art studio, mixing paints for the master, and observing.
Leonardo expanded his education by adding to his nature journals in his free time.
Beyond the nature journals, he also experimented with different types of paint mixtures.
Varying the pigments and oils to create new techniques eventually made him famous.
Thus, Leonardo da Vinci became one of the first artists in the world to become famous also as a scientist, because of his attention to detail, and masterful study of nature.
On top of all that, da Vinci’s execution for precision was based in his knowledge of mathematics, which exemplifies that a simple education of a poor boy hundreds of years ago when classical education ruled is better than today’s grammar education of the modern movement.
Recommended Reading
Written as a story, I highly recommend this great biography (Leonardo da Vinci for Kids: His Life and Ideas, 21 Activities) and art primer that we read.
The art projects included in this book became the major art project for our Renaissance unit.
Inspiring my kids to keep a Nature Journal
My children enjoy collecting various assortments of seeds and seed pods, opening them and scattering them to the wind.
They enjoy collecting my flowers while admiring their colors and scents. They are quick to identify a colorful bird and try to imitate its song.
However, the idea of sitting down with a sketch pad and pencil in the great out of doors was not a thrilling prospect for my children.
For the first time since our classical studies began, they balked at the idea of this art project.
To hopefully inspire them, I showed them my weekly calendar book for the year, which was a beautiful nature journal of the contemporary Dutch artist Marjolein Bastin.
Encouraged, my kids decided to be optimistic about the project, and asked me to keep a journal, too.
After a trip to Hobby Lobby to purchase sketch pads, the kids decorated the covers anyway they wanted, then we began the suggested projects.
In preparation, we finally got around to putting out bird seed, although my son insisted it was too late in the season. He was probably right…but I had hope!
Our First Nature Journal Session
We ate lunch. We were ready to sketch birds, but there were no birds. Brainstorming other possibilities, we settled on simply sketchy a plant of our choice in my garden, in its South-Central Texas wintery form.
Choosing where they preferred to work, my 14yod decided to stay inside to sketch the poinsettia, which I decided to do as well.
Meanwhile my 12yos decided to sit outside to sketch the plum bushes in front of our Texas pioneer-style shed.
Our cat, Slipper, was fascinated to find us in unusual places, dd and I at the kitchen table, while ds sat outside at the porch table.
Slipper looked out the window in perplexity. (Note to self: keep my camera handy!)
Later in the sketching session dd commented that she heard a bird, although she couldn’t see any.
Soon ds quietly opened the door to tell us he had been watching a cardinal fly from one of our trees to the other, which dd and I had just missed.
In all, he saw 2 cardinals and 1 goldfinch…because he was sitting outside, quietly observing the trees and bushes.
This was a peaceful time that seemed to be quite positive.
After this first session I asked ds if he had a good time sketching today. “Oh yes!” he exclaimed. He showed me his page.
Presenting their Nature Journals
I was flabbergasted! He has always been quite the artist, but I didn’t expect this first page of his nature journal.
My photography cannot capture the beautiful soft colors that have an impressionistic touch. But it’s the words that get me.
I have never seen him attempt poetry before. I didn’t even ask him to write poetry. It was all his idea. See the cardinal in the tree?
When I asked dd about her experience, she smiled and said she really enjoyed nature journaling too!
Epilogue 2024
Five months later my kids and I got to see an amazing Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at San Antonio’s Witte Museum, where we got to interact with all his war machines that we read about in the book we had read for this nature journal project. My kids had a blast! Stay tuned for photos of that.
The header and the photo below are nature journal entries of the birds who finally came to enjoy our bird feeder.
