Hi guys,
I made a video about how does it feel like to paint outside unlike painting at the studio.
I always bring with me this watercolour pocket box and a watercolour sketchbook from Winsor and Newton. If you feel curious about it, I have another video about this watercolour set, which you will find linked below in the description box.
Now, in spring it is not so cold at last and I can go outside to draw. I am taking you to join me at Julianapark to show you a bit of what it feels like during this time of the year in Utrecht.
The idea to go outside to paint is beautiful. But not as easy as you may think.
Painting at the studio is more comfortable because we can have more control over our environment, like the light and the temperature, adn of course inside the studio we can avoid distractions. There, we can bring samples to work with or use photos for references and work with them on our own time.
It is a totally a different experience to paint form live outside and be open to what we might find there. Outside we become part of what surrounds us. We have the chance to touch the objects we are painting, we are affected by the sight, the smell, the sounds of birds, the movement of people and the wind. All of that will affect what we are painting.
Outside you need to find a comfortable spot, where you can sit down for a certain amount of time to get into a kind of 'zone'. In that ideal place, most of artists prefer avoiding distractions and interruptions to be able to abstract and have a dialogue in their own minds with whatever they are painting.
Outside you can't control the light intensity, the wind, the rain. We become part of our surroundings and instead of fighting them, we can choose to absorb them and use them as stimulations for our paintings, like Turner, Van Gogh and others did, capturing those moments in their sketchbooks, [along with sand and plants mixed in their pigments].
Getting outside to sketch and paint is an act of bravery for painters if we deal with letting go of control and let ourselves flow with the same rhythm of the elements.
It is also a way to gather inspiration and a kind of work out to keep our observation skills sharpened.
We always can get back to the studio to complete the artworks and to take those sketches as references, but the experience of painting outside is a battery charging experience for our senses.
I hope you enjoyed this video as much as I did finding snowdrop flowers and capturing their memory in my sketchbook.
Until the next one!