In my nature journaling project for 2025, I am following the Japanese calendar of 72 microseasons (little ‘seasons’ of about 5 days each). I am painting a journal spread for each microseason I identify and writing a little description to accompany it. This year, I am using only art in this journal to convey the changes through the year, no dates and no words on the pages themselves. This is forcing a creative and responsive artistic method, new to my nature journaling practice so far.
Season #10 (9 – 13 February): Gorse Flares the Landscape Yellow
When the air is cold and the sky is ice blue, I look for warmth wherever I go. On the heathlands of the pebble beds, gorse is in a riot of flower. Gorse flowers much of the year round, hence the expression ‘when gorse is in bloom, kissing’s in fashion’ but the majority of flowers are in the early part of the year. Later in the year, fertilised flowers turn into pods that will crackle open in the warm sunshine. It always seems to me that the gorse holds some warmth about it even in winter – its similarity to fire in its yellow and orange flowers, its smell of suntan lotions and summer holidays, and that memory of popping pods in midsummer.
Later in the year, I remember those early days of new gorse flowers and gather handfuls of spring flowers to take home and turn into a vial of ink that hopefully will help me recall the warmth of gorse flowers all year round.
The Page
The Process
I made my handfuls of flowers into gorse ink as described in the video below (I will share the full recipe here next time) and then painted the whole journal page bright yellow using the ink.
Once the background yellow was dry, I painted the prickly green gorse stems with Derwent Inktense, making sure I left spaces for the flowers to sit. I didn’t copy any single photo, but instead had pictures from several different angles and locations to work from. I wanted to give the impression of a dense gorse hedge, full of flowers.
To create the gorse flowers, I went back to the ink and used a brush to create “blobs” of watery ink that I allowed to sit on the page until they dried. This was a natural way to intensify the colour of the ink, and also make use of the droplet shape to emulate gorse flowers in a non-uniform way.
The Video
You can watch the process of creating this gorse page, including making the ink itself, in the video below.
Want to have a go yourself? The Nature Journaling Circle membership is a welcoming space for you to learn field sketching and other nature journaling skills with me. There’s a monthly live tutorial and a social session, plus access to all my pre-recorded video courses and a community of lovely nature journalers from around the world. If that’s something you might be interested in, consider joining us here.
