AI Summary
5 min readLaura Call Gastinger started nature journaling as a teenager, but like many people, she found it hard to keep the practice going. The blank pages of a gifted journal are a familiar guilt. Her solution, developed over more than twenty years, is the “perpetual journal”—a simple structural trick that turns a sporadic sketching habit into a long-term relationship with a place and its plants. The insight at the heart of the method is not about artistic skill. It is about making the practice so low-stakes that you cannot fail to keep it, and then letting the cumulative record teach you what you would never notice in a single visit.
A Journal That Fills Itself Over Years
The perpetual journal works by pre-dating every spread in a blank book. Gastinger recommends a journal of at least sixty pages. On the first spread, you write “January 1–7.” On the next, “January 8–14,” and so on through the entire year. Then, whatever day it is, you turn to that week’s spread and make one observation. You have seven days to add something—a leaf, a seed pod, a written note, a quick sketch of a flower. Nothing more is required. The genius is that the same spread returns year after year. Over time, a single page accumulates observations from five, seven, or ten different years, all layered together. Gastinger’s first perpetual journal ran from 2001 to 2017. Her second started in 2016 and is still
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:43) **Welcome & Guest Introduction** - Host Giling introduces Lara Call Gastinger, a botanical illustrator with a biology and plant ecology background.
- 2 (02:08) **Lara's Current Garden & Drawing Focus** - Lara describes her native plant garden in Charlottesville, Virginia and what she's currently sketching.
- 3 (03:24) **Early Journey into Plants and Art** - Lara recounts her childhood on the Virginia coast and the mentors who shaped her path.
- 4 (04:49) **The Process of Working from Live Plants** - Lara explains why she insists on drawing from live specimens rather than photographs.
- 5 (07:17) **Challenges of Drawing Mushrooms** - Lara shares her experience contributing to the Peterson field guide on mushrooms.
- 6 (08:40) **Introducing the Perpetual Journal Practice** - Lara describes the core concept of the perpetual journal and why it solves the problem of abandoned sketchbooks.
- 7 (10:57) **Lara's Personal Journal History & Benefits** - Lara shares how long she has maintained the practice and what it cultivates.
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Show Notes
🎉🌿 School is officially back in session for Herbal Radio! 🌿🎉
We hope you all had a lovely summer break and enjoyed the vault releases we shared while we were busy brewing up a new and exciting lineup of podcast guests for the upcoming fall season.
To kickstart our first week back in action, Jiling is joined by the award-winning artist and botanical illustrator, Lara Call Gastinger. Join us as Jiling and Lara explore:
- The art of nature journaling
- Building a perpetual journaling practice
- Lara's new book, A Perpetual Journal Practice: Building a Connection to Nature through Art
As always, we thank you for joining us on another botanical adventure and are so honored to have you tag along with us on this ride. Remember, we want to hear from you! Your questions, ideas, and who you want to hear from are an invaluable piece to our podcast. Email us at [email protected] or reach out on Instagram @herbal.radio to let us know what solutions we should uncover next within the vast world of herbalism.
🎥 Watch the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/m1YbuIeUWOY
🎨 Lara Call Gastinger is an artist and botanical illustrator from Charlottesville, Virginia, and was the chief illustrator of Flora of Virginia, a botanical reference. She has an undergraduate degree in biology from UVA and a master's degree in plant ecology from Virginia Tech. She has been awarded two gold medals (2007, 2018) at the RHS Botanical Art Show in London, and her work is in the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. Her art appears in Peterson's Field Guide to Mushrooms of North America and ASBA's Botanical Art Techniques. She teaches online and has had in person workshops in Japan, Romania, and France.
Where to find Lara Call Gastinger online:
📱Instagram: @laragastiner
💻 Website: www.laracallgastinger.com
👩🏻💻Patreon: @Lara Gasti
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