Today is one of my favorite days in the year — both for art and as an inhabitant of this planet. It’s Earth Day 2025. According to the official site, “Earth Day” turns 55 this year, having first started in 1970. The theme for the year is “Our Power, Our Planet” with a focus on renewable energy.
The Earth Day site has many features of interest, offering ideas for how each of us can more actively promote renewable energy resources and contribute toward a healthier environment, so if you’re an earth lover — and we all should love this planet — I encourage you to visit the site, and, perhaps make a donation if you’re able.
You may also want to check out events happening in your area. Many civic groups and nature organizations plan special events for Earth Day.
I tend to celebrate Earth Day quietly, in my own way, usually in my own backyard, or at a nearby park. For me, Earth Day is a time to make a new sketchbook or bring out an old one, a time for sitting in the grass, watching the skies, just quietly observing what I see and making note of it in my “Nature Journal”.
But what, exactly, is a “nature journal”? Is it merely a sketchbook filled with “nature” drawings”? In the past, that’s somewhat the form my “nature journals” have taken, but a nature journal can be so much more. A good nature journal is an observational tool, an educational experience, and an opportunity to become a better steward for our planet.
I’m welcoming Earth Day 2025 by reading “A Field Guide to Nature Journaling” by James Sisti, marketed as a “Hike and Draw Book” — just what I love doing!
The above title is only one of many helpful guide books for nature journaling. Others of interest are:
Keeping a Nature Journal: Deepen Your Connection with the Natural World All Around You
The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling
How to Keep a Naturalist’s Notebook
For many, “Earth Day” comes once a year. It’s acknowledged, celebrated, and then, all too quickly forgotten. Protecting our planet and revering Mother Earth should not be a one-time-a-year event, or even a brief seasonal awareness.
To keep myself focused more on my role as an inhabitant of this planet and my obligations to care for nature, I’ll also be reading “A Field Guide to Nature Meditation: 52 Mindfulness Practices for Joy, Wisdom, and Wonder” by Mark Coleman. I want to take both my art practice and my meditation practices outdoors with me and fully experience the beauty and the wonder of the natural world.
I invite you to join with me in celebrating Earth Day 2025 — and continuing the celebration onward through the year. As I return to landscape oil paintings with both oil paints and oil pastels, I will be sharing my art and my experiences through the seasons. Spring rains, summer sunshine, autumn colors, and winter snow — every season has much to offer to us.
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