Rewilding Through Painting Outdoors - The Art of Looking

Most of us spend our days moving between screens, buildings, and destinations. We walk through the landscape without really seeing it properly. Even when we do go out in nature, we consume it quickly, indirectly: a quick photo taken, a path completed, a viewpoint ticked off during a guided tour. But what happened to really taking the time to slow down, to look, reconnecting with nature?

Rewilding isn’t only about restoring landscapes. It can also mean restoring our attention. Painting beautiful places from life is a great way to do this, and it has nothing to do with what materials you have, your talent or experience.

Painting Forces You to Slow Down

There’s a big difference between passing through a landscape and photographing one. There’s a bigger difference photographing and sitting with a landscape for two hours. There’s longer you stay in one place, the more you can observe, see colour relationships ( green is never just green), watch plant head and petals shift with the sun as the light changes on its arc across the sky.

For me, the more I engage all my senses in the landscape, the greater my connection to it.

Here are a few ways that painting helps you to slow down your mind to natures rhythms.

You Start Seeing Shapes Before Names

Instead of oak trees or cirrus clouds or clumps of rock, you start to see silhouettes of one organic form against another. You’ll zoom in on textures and patterns, noticing the micro details you miss if you’re just looking for landmarks.

You’ll Learn a Landscape’s Language

Everywhere has its unique climate, species of trees, plants and vistas, but there’s more to the hidden landscape than meets the eye at first.

Observe how the wind has bent and twisted the trees across a valley floor. Different shades of green in low hedgerows and high verdant pine trees. Seasonal colour shifts too, are everywhere, and not just the golden reds of autumn. As the sun warms and strengthens, even the grass hues shift to take advantage of the growing season.

Local plants too emerge at different times of the year, so a walk in early May could be surrounded by delicate bluebells, but a month later and the wildflowers will have taken over. Even the morning chorus of birds, though predictable, changes in intensity and frequency with the seasons.

Plein Air Painting as a Rewilding Practice

So, how do you put rewilding into practice?

Find a Sit Spot

The key starts with observation. Just like any good nature observer or bird watcher, you should start with finding a comfortable location that has a little something special about it.

• return to the same location repeatedly

• visit at different times of day and different weather conditions

• watch seasonal changes

• start drawing simple outlines of the shapes and objects/features around you

Sketch Before You Paint

Before you start thinking about accuracy or composition, just start sketching with a loose, free hand. You’re aiming for quick marks: Big shapes, values and movement. You can even sketch with words, or do some art journaling, documenting your first impressions you see around you.

Accept Imperfection

Nature is constantly changing. The goal of painting or drawing outdoors is not perfect landscape paintings but for pure enjoyment and deeper observation.

What Painting Outdoors Can Give You

Painting outdoors, whether you’re a beginner or a pro, is good for you. Getting in touch with nature directly will do so much more than just hone your technical and observational skills as an artist. You’ll also get:

• Greater awareness of seasons

• Better understanding of local wildlife

• Reduced mental noise

• Stronger attachment to place

• More meaningful travel experiences

You Don’t Need To Be An Artist

You don’t need expensive materials, formal training or to walk away with finished paintings. You can start with a pencil, a notebook and ten minutes.

The goal is noticing.

Not producing.

Creative rewilding doesn’t always begin in vast forests or remote wilderness. Sometimes it begins by sitting quietly under a tree with a sketchbook, paying attention long enough for a place to stop feeling like scenery and start feeling like a relationship.