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September in Arkansas still feels like summer, with hot afternoons and plenty of sunshine, but subtle changes begin to appear. The days are a little shorter, evenings bring a touch of relief, acorns and seeds start to scatter on the ground, and mushrooms pop up throughout the forest. It’s a season of transition, perfect for slowing down and noticing the quieter shifts in nature. This month’s 25 prompts are designed to help you capture those in-between moments and turn them into meaningful journal entries.
This month, I’m also changing things up a bit and providing you with a step-by-step tutorial for completing one of this month’s prompts. Feel free to follow along or to get creative and make it your own.
September Nature Journaling Prompts
- Color Watch
- September Sun
- Evening Breeze
- Acorn Season
- Feathered Travelers
- Backwoods Sketch
- Mushroom Hunt
- Arkansas Harvest
- Web Patterns
- September Sky
- Nut and Seed Study
- Slow Changes
- Late Bloomers
- Bird Migration
- Sketch a Gourd
- Misty Mornings
- Dry Leaves
- Prairie Walk
- Evening Glow
- Sound of Leaves
- New School of Thought
- Shadows Shift
- Signs of Fall
- Woodland Wander
- Goodbye, Summer
How to Use These Prompts
If you’ve been following along through the summer, your sketchbook probably already holds a handful of memories and observations. This month adds 25 more prompts to keep you looking closely at the world around you. You might decide to use one prompt each day and give yourself weekends off, or you may prefer to pick and choose the ones that inspire you most. And if you’re brand new, don’t feel overwhelmed. Just grab a sheet of paper and try a few prompts to get started—you’ll be surprised how quickly the pages begin to fill.
If you need ideas for supplies or want a refresher on the basics, take a look at my first nature journaling article.
Tutorial: Prompt #7 – Mushroom Hunt
Both spring and fall are great times to hunt for mushrooms on your evening walk. Especially when the nights begin to cool a bit and we get a few fall showers, mushrooms begin to pop up in the woods across Arkansas. Painting mushrooms is easier than it looks, and the results are stunning. A collection of real or imagined mushrooms makes a fun addition to any nature journal.
Step 1: Paint colored blobs.
Supplies: Water, watercolor, paintbrush
Seriously, these beautiful mushrooms begin with just a blob of paint that loosely resembles the shape of a mushroom. I used watercolors because they are somewhat transparent, making it easy to add details with a pen or marker later on. You can work realistically and paint tan, blue, orange and brown blobs to reflect the mushrooms you might find in your backyard or you can go crazy and use every color in your palette. After you’ve painted your blobs, let them dry completely before moving on.
Step 2: Add ink details.
Supplies: Black marker, Sharpie or bleed-proof pen
The next step is to use the pen to add details to your mushroom-shaped blob. Outline the top of the mushroom. (Hint: Don’t worry about trying to “stay on the line”! Loose lines are lovely.) Add a stem and some gills. Gills are those “furry” looking lines on the bottom of the mushroom. Add a hint of grass near the bottom to anchor your mushroom and add little details like dots or stripes.
Step 3: Add species details.
Supplies: Mushroom nature guide
If you worked from mushrooms you observed, you can grab a mushroom nature guide to help you determine the type of mushroom you found. Many mushrooms look similar, so it’s okay if you make your best guess. I like to then record details like the common name, scientific name, size, shape and color.
Step 4: Add a spore print.
Supplies: Mushroom cap
Step 4 is optional, but a lot of fun. A spore print is like a mushroom’s fingerprint. It shows the unique color pattern of its spores, which are tiny reproductive cells similar to seeds in plants. To make one, I place the mushroom cap gill-side down on paper and cover it with a bowl to maintain moisture and prevent air movement. I leave the mushroom on the paper overnight, and by morning, the spores have dropped and created a beautiful print. Sometimes, the color of the spore print can help you differentiate between two similar-looking species. It is worth noting that some mushrooms produce white or cream-colored spore prints, which are more visible on black paper.
Nature journals can be very personal, but if you’d like to share some of your pages with us on Instagram, you can use #onlyinarknature and tag @onlyinark. If you share a post, we may feature it in an upcoming article. Check back at the end of September for the October prompts. Until then, Happy Journaling!
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