An interesting site that has bird lovers' sketchbooks on it.

Wonderful for Nature Notebook inspiration.

http://www.surfbirds.com/Sketchbook%20/skindex.html 

Funny story how I came across it. I was thumbing through a very old issue of National Geographic World that was in a pile of magazines a friend gave my DD. It had an article on a very talented bird artist, Jenny Brumfeld, that at age 13, showed amazing talent as a wildlife illustrator. I was curious to see if her work was online, 11 years later. The internet is an amazing thing. Her work was featured on the Surfbirds site, and she is still a truly gifted artist.

What I really took away from this, is a sense of wonderment of knowing ones' passion at that age, and having the commitment to dedicate and continue to pursue it. I've read books on living your passion, and one of them suggests making lists of what your favorite things to do were at the ages of 11-13. What did you do for hours and hours until you were interrupted...they suggest that those were clues for your passion, and that you should try to tune into that again.

I hope that I will be able to key into my children's interests at these ages--make sure they are journalling, and when they are inevitably waffling when they are older, help remind them what their passion was.