All my art begins outdoors

A landscape whispers shouts 'paint me!'

The flicker that catches my eye, can be a number of qualities in my surroundings: a composition (the shapes in the scene), the atmospherics (light and dark), and colours and textures.

Sometimes it's a particular thing that fascinates and beguiles me, such as an intriguing, spectacular, or unique tree.

Composition (the way a scene arranges itself) is a big thing in my art. It's usually a combination: composition and atmosphere; an awesome tree/rock/cloud and composition; composition and 'something' I'm not sure about. The list is long and it's not an exact science.

Saying all that, I'm not always sure which of the above it is, or whether there's something else that glimmers there.

Something says 'paint me' and I have to figure out exactly what that something is.

The thing is: a tonne of ideas makes it difficult to choose what to work on and to maintain a focus.

I've driven myself nuts in the past. Managing how I collect and work on ideas has preoccupied me a great deal in the last few years.

An over‑active connection with a muse is not all good!

So all my art begins outdoors with a spark. There's some 'thing' I see while exploring the landscape. Capturing it is the key.

†I'm partially quoting from a description crediting creative genius Steve Jobs' with an understanding of a fundamental truth. Jobs understood how fragile ideas are. They come quickly, but are lost even faster.

Landscape moves

Landscape is always changing. A cloud shadow, the way the wind is blowing the grasses on a slope before it changes direction, the last wisps of mist fading, some other animated element like animals or people or boats.

What catches the eye usually involves at least one of these fleeting, but potent, animations. Scenery doesn't just sit there doing nothing.

Speed is important more often than you'd imagine. Ooh look, that stunning light effect – oh, gone, meh is the story of my life.

Light changes all the time – the sun is always on the move. Yes, the sun does move slowly, but other elements like the weather tends to move faster and the combination makes for an ever changing view. Clouds can form in minutes, for example.

The spark of an idea can be iridescent – made of multiple things, each fading in a moment. It's why the hardest bit, as Steve Jobs knew, is pressing that spark into a visual note.

An arsenal of sketching kit

I've spent a lifetime sketching, and I'm still exploring sketching approaches.

The photos at the top of this screen show some of the visual note taking strategies I use.

Which I use, and when, depends on a lot of things. How much time I have, what I'm able to carry, distance to travel, the conditions, and my purpose, for example.

I might be 'exploring' an area, or revisiting a viewpoint to develop an idea / collect more reference. There might be a specific thing I'm checking on. Or I could be intent on getting 'enough' reference in one sitting, because I won't be able to easily return.

I find photographs minimally useful as reference material. There are all sorts of ways in which photos fail as reference. My sketches are what I wish photos were *, **

The outdoor artist's obsession

I'm constantly developing both my approach to capturing what I see when outdoors, and my outdoor kit.

Being able to respond to unexpected conditions on arrival, or half way through a session, is important to ensuring I can come away with something useful.

My car boot is always filled with various bags of sketching kit (minimal, watercolour, acrylic), wet panel carriers containing toned canvas board, tripod easel, sketching chair, oil painting rucksack, drawing boards with paper, painting coat, wellies. There's little room for the shopping – I've got my priorities right!

Both inspiration and working outdoors are unpredictable, but it's where all my art begins.