A Perpetual Journal is a log or sketchbook—popularised by botanical artist Lara Call Gastinger—where pages are organised by date ranges or weeks of the year rather than a single specific calendar year and help us really notice the seasons around us. It offers a regular space that you can sit down to and make note of the natural world whether that be through the written or drawn marks. The incremental adding to the journal means that across a year, or several years, a beautiful artefact of a life is made, and notes about the natural world around us are recorded.

This class will be run in four parts to mimic the Western Seasonal calendar. You can attend one or all four, a discount is provided for multiple bookings.

The class will be held at Mount Macedon’s beautiful Duneira Gardens. Beginning with a tour of the garden, we will take a few cuttings of specimens that catch our eye. Once we sit down students will be led through a series of drawing exercises to warm up before really getting down to the act of looking and capturing our natural objects in our Journals.

Elizabeth will show her own journals and give demonstrations of how to begin your own. The aim is that by the end of a year you would be able to have many specimens captured from Duneira Gardens, but also your own backyard, interlacing drawing with text, stitching or collage across a journal format book and the learned skills with which to easily do so. One could create notes on weather, things that are happening in your own garden or community noted down. The perpetual journal incrementally evolves and becomes a beautiful keepsake of a life lived in conversation with the Natural World.

Materials Provided for use in the class

Notebook (to take home) Pencils, Watercolours, Brushes, Charcoal, Fine liner pens, Glue, Plate/palette, Thread, Needles, Scissors (thread and paper), Collage paper (musical scores, ledger books, magazines) and whatever else I can rustle up to use!

Materials recommended to bring If you have a journal you would prefer to use please bring that. I recommend something with at least 12 pages, preference being 52 (to mirror the months or weeks of the year) Watercolours Brushes, Drawing implements, Any Collage paper you enjoy, your own scissors, glue etc.

$150 per workshop or $500 for all four workshops, includes Devonshire tea.

Through the Seasons - Seasonal Perpetual Journalling Workshop By Elizabeth Barnett

Choose your tickets

Single Workshop Ticket ticket

All Four Workshops Discount Ticket ticket