The Beautiful Wild

About course

Nature provides endless inspiration and materials for your exploration...

Welcome to The Beautiful Wild - a 12-week course and book designed by Richele Baburina and Ashley Olander to explore and work with nature’s gifts while developing and deepening your family’s relationship with the natural world and one another.

Each lesson includes a video tutorial where Richele Baburina shares the project, tutorial, or lesson for that day's study. Plus, if you live in the US or Canada, you'll receive a beautiful 132-page companion book in the mail. (If you live elsewhere, you'll get access to a PDF version of the book.

You’ll put your best foot forward with sustainable practices for mindful foraging and instructions for preserving your items. Your finds will be used in other lessons, such as botanical stamping—simple enough for little hands yet offering open-ended design choices for older children and teens. 

Many of the lessons result in wonderful gifts—such as the Ornament of Everlasting Beauty. Heads, hands, and hearts are engaged as you learn to fashion a crochet hook—from choosing the right stick to revealing the hook within. You’ll also make willow charcoal, a medium dating back to ancient times, and gather natural earth pigments to turn into paint.

Cultivate an artist’s hand and eye while creating botanical contour drawings and atmospheric landscapes. Art and science come together as elements from The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady are incorporated into your own nature journal.

Learn a new watercolor technique to paint a full moon, or follow in the footsteps of a young Emily Dickinson by creating your own herbarium. Nature provides endless inspiration and materials for exploration, so let your imagination run wild!

Lessons

1. Foraging Winter Weeds & Wildflowers

Nature gifts us a quiet beauty this time of year. Trees and flora throw off their garments to reveal...

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2. Stamping with Poppy Seed Heads

There s something about being in nature that inspires creativity. Perhaps it s the stunning range of...

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3. Ornament of Everlasting Beauty

With its unique appearance and cheerful gemlike colors, the strawflower beckons to be touched. Feeli...

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4. Whittling a Crochet Hook

In the book Revenge of Analog , author David Sax notes that young people are increasingly turning to...

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5. Willow Drawing Charcoal

My children were entranced by the story of Jean François Millet s life as told in the children s cla...

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6. Botanical Contour Drawing in Charcoal

If you re looking for a stress-free drawing technique that s great for all ages, contour drawing is ...

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7. Painting with Foraged Pigments

Marguerite Henry is perhaps best known for her books about horses, including Misty of Chincoteague a...

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8. The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady

A young girl fair hair pulled back from her face and her hands full of flowers bursts through the fr...

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9. Atmospheric Landscapes

For years, my children and I made a daily trek to a meadow pond situated atop the northern Appalachi...

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10. Painting Full Moons

When my eldest child was just a toddler, he would stretch out his hand as far as he could to catch t...

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11. The Lore & Lure of Pussy Willow

Once upon a time and it was before your time, and it was before my time a litter of kittens was play...

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12. Immortal Flowers

Sending a flower with a little poem to a friend was a popular thing to do in the 1800s. In like fash...

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13. Watercolor Leaves with Confidence (Bonus)

A handful of fortune cookies were delivered to the table following our meal. With excitement out fam...

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14. How to Paint a Spiral Shell (Bonus)

There s a place on the river near our home that s popular with fishermen, including my youngest son....

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15. Nature Journaling a White Clover (Bonus)

My mom decided to paint the living room a creamy white before moving into our new home when I was a ...

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16. Nature Journal a Mushroom (Bonus)

Have you ever stumbled upon a fairy ring? This ring of mushrooms occurs naturally from fungus that f...

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17. Nature Journaling Prairie Grass (Bonus)

Brush drawing was first introduced in Charlotte Mason schools and homeschools in the 19th century. V...

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18. Paint a Pinecone (Bonus)

In this tutorial, we re going to use a watercolor technique called glazing in which a thin layer of ...

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19. Brush Draw Berries (Bonus)

Berries come in many shapes and colors, but all can be painted using one basic brushstroke called th...

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20. Watercolor a Winter Wreath (Bonus)

Wreathes were first used as holiday decorations by the ancient Scandinavian and Germanic people duri...

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21. Painting a Turnip (Bonus)

Expressive watercolor, often called loose watercolor, is a painting style more concerned with captur...

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22. Nature Journal a Rock (Bonus)

Rocks make up the geological history and landscape of an area, making them great additions to your n...

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23. Watercolor Egg Painting (Bonus)

Eggs come in a range of colors, sizes, textures, and shapes. Even chicken eggs can range from light ...

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