There are many wonderful benefits of working in the landscape. These are some of my favourites…
You stop thinking and start feeling – time becomes irrelevant, rules don’t exist, anxiety and tension evaporates, energy rises and intuition is turned on;
You loosen up and make more definite marks – the changing environment around you doesn’t wait around for painstaking analysis and fiddly detail…. you can do all that in the studio. Out here, nature encourages you to relax, stop overthinking and work more freely and that’s almost always good for the work you do;
You work in the moment – there’ll be dirt and bugs or maybe a pesky gust that blows your canvas right off the easel. At first, that could be annoying, until you realise these ‘challenges’ are actually helping you forget about ‘perfection’ and ‘performance’ (some of the biggest blocks to creativity);
You become more observant – something will always catch your attention and you’ll notice the essence of it in such a way that you can record it in the most economical fashion. Not only do you see the way things look, you can feel the way they are too;
You can feel the energy and personality of the landscape – every landscape has a feel to it and when you get in amongst it, its energy and rhythm can help your work;
You can experiment – painters often work outdoors just to observe, soak it up and do studies they can refer to later. Just observing, making marks and soaking up the energy often opens the way for experimentation and wonderful breakthroughs.
