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Visitors are invited to sketch from the PTMSC collections.Why nature journaling?
Carolyn Woods: I’ve been drawing, painting, and scribbling my entire life, and I’ve always been drawn to subjects in nature – plants, animals, landscapes. But it was an internship at a wildlife refuge in the San Francisco Bay ten years ago and then working at PTMSC as an environmental educator that helped inspire me to take up nature journaling. I was in landscapes that were new to me, and seeing animals and other living things in a new way as I was preparing to teach other people about them. I found myself wanting to explore them artistically to deepen my understanding of things like identifying marks and features for shells, wing feather patterns, and kelp branching structures.
Spending more time drawing in the field also had practical considerations – I needed more convenient and portable tools than what I’d been used to using at home or in art classrooms. These things overlapped and I came across the work of John Muir Laws – wonderfully illustrated field guides for the new birds I was seeing in California, and his blog posts at the time about creating a DIY portable watercolor palette from an old mint tin and gum wrappers. This got me hooked on painting outdoors and I’ve been doing it ever since – with a few upgrades along the way (Art Toolkit).
As the Education Manager, Carolyn enjoys sharing her passion for conserving the Salish Sea with students through school programs and summer camps at PTMSC. She enjoys connecting youth and adults with the wonders of the natural world and uses art as a teaching tool whenever possible. Her favorite part of the job is being a witness to discoveries and connections made by students in the marine environment.
Carolyn has worked at Port Townsend Marine Science Center in various roles since 2014, including serving as a Marine Mammal Stranding Network intern and a term as an AmeriCorps member. She holds a BS in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology from the University of Washington and has also served at the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge as a Visitor Services and Education intern. When she’s not at PTMSC, Carolyn may be painting, hiking, rollerskating, birding, listening to music or some combination thereof.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
1001 Water St., Port Townsend, WA, United States, Washington 98368
