Anna’s tips on how to create art from nature
1 CAPTURE YOUR MOMENTS IN NATURE
Schedule regular times to take your sketchbook, pencils and travel paints with you into nature. Observe and record what you see in the form of sketches and colour mixes. To make this easy, keep your kit ready to go in an easy-to-carry bag at all times. You could even go digital and take an iPad with Apple pencil when you go for a nature-observing session. However, as I so often nd, nature inspiration can strike at non-scheduled times: when you’re walking the dog in the park, or as you pass somebody’s front garden on the way to work. When it does, pause. Absorb the moment. Engage your senses. Closely observe the details. Then make use of the modern artist’s best friend: your phone. Take photos. Record sounds. Create a video. Make notes. What does it remind you of? How does it make you feel?
2 REPLAY YOUR NATURE MOMENTS
When you’re ready to create, look back over what you’ve recorded. Use your sketches, photos and notes as jumping o points to explore, research, draw, paint and write. Connect deeply with the subject. These nature moments can be a bottomless source of inspiration. I’ve revisited mine years later to create from them.
3 KEEP A NATURE JOURNAL
Tune in to the way nature changes over time and keep a record of it in a nature journal. I create my nature journal on my iPad. It brings me endless joy to reect back on my nature journal entries and I hope you’ll experience that too.