Here are three really interesting ways to find new subjects in the landscape.

Have you ever wandered around looking for something to paint and ended up going home without even having made a sketch? You’ve maybe spent an hour walking the streets of your town or plodding over the fields near your house, getting tired and thirsty and eventually heading home frustrated and fed up. That wonderful scene that you thought you might paint proved to be elusive and nothing grabbed your attention.
I know exactly how you feel.

But let me try and help you out by sharing three ways of finding inspiration in the landscape. Give them a go and see if you can always head home with a sketch, a drawing or a painting.

1. Turning through 360 degrees

On page 23 he suggests the following exercise:
Stand or sit somewhere fairly open in a natural rather than man-made environment. Rapidly draw or paint one of the views available to you from your chosen spot. Limit yourself to what you can comfortably see in one ‘eyeful’. When you reach a point where you’re happy to stop, turen a little so that you can see the next section from the same point. Start a second drawing or painting so that its left hand edge would join on to the right hand side of the first image. Keep going with more pictures until you have returned to your starting point.

So, I went out and did just that!

What did I learn? Well, it was fascinating, and I intend to do more like this.
Firstly, I realised that there are drawings to be made everywhere and anywhere. You don’t need to look for a specific subject. Everything becomes your subject!
Secondly, I was able (as he does in his book) to use a mixture of drawing and painting to enhance and explore the overall picture. Some areas I left as just pencil lines, and other areas I added paint. I was free to do this because each panel was a separate picture as it were, but I loved the mix, and is something that may well be worth exploring within the limits of a single painting.
Finally, I found out that the dirt track that headed diagonally away from me in the first panel, was horizontal in the last panel, even though in theory the last panel should join onto the first. I have no idea why this should be, but it did make me think anew about what I saw in front of me!

2. It’s behind you!

Here’s another idea for finding painting subjects when you are outdoors. Perhaps you have found an interesting scene to paint and you have made a sketch of it and are ready to pack up but not just head home. Why not give yourself a challenge? Turn around through 180 degrees and paint what is behind you. Whatever it is. Even if it is ugly or uninteresting! This will challenge your abilities to find beauty and subject matter anywhere.

3. Walk a minute

Thanks for reading this post and I hope some or all of this has inspired you!

Please click on the thumbs up below if you liked this post.
And join my mailing list to be kept informed of all my doings!