Our lives and the natural world around us are full of countless uplifting opportunities and exciting moments that can inspire the creativity of artists both old and young, novice or professional. Therefore, here are 5 exciting and uplifting ways that life and nature can inspire art.
- Using natural mediums
The very elements of the nature around us don’t have to just inspire us, they can become the art itself. In fact, many elements of our surroundings can be used as mediums for creating art.
From natural pigments and minerals, to charcoal, graphite, chalk, clay, and even water. Some of these things have been used since people lived in caves, to create the world-famous cave paintings of our ancestors past.
- Life drawing
Life drawing is the activity or skill of drawing people, especially a model in an art class. You might also recognise it from countless TV shows, films, and even art classes where someone might be tasked with drawing a nude figure, striking a natural pose.
Therefore, even the naked human form can inspire art, teaching us how to properly compose every inch of the body, and allowing us to flesh out our ideas, transposing these figures into idyllic settings of our choosing.
- Taking inspiration from nature
Taking inspiration from nature can be literal, as in painting a still life or with a photorealistic style, or it could take on a more abstract form. Perhaps it is the colour that inspires you, or the way that nature makes you feel.
For example, Dan Colen took a different approach in his inspiration from nature, producing the ‘misused’ canvas of The Awesome Power of Nature (2006). Found in a thrift shop, this piece is an appropriated painting, framed inside out to conceal the original piece.
Instead, you can see a blank field of projection, upon which the pervious owner notes “I find in this, the awesome power of nature, and the warm nature of mankind”. Colen’s The Awesome Power of Nature can be seen as part of the Charles Saatchi collection.
- Evoking movement
Another way that nature can inspire art is when an artist can capture a snapshot of a fleeting moment in the natural world. Having observed and experienced the world around us, this can put down on the page to evoke the same feelings as observing the scene in the same instance.
For example, watercolour and wispy charcoal lines can be used to effortlessly evoke feelings of movement, mirroring the breeze in the air, the shuffling of the grass, and the turn of the tide in the ocean.
- An uninterrupted break can drive new ideas
And finally, life and nature doesn’t always simply inspire the artwork at hand, it can inspire the artist. Staying in the same environment for too long can drain even the most creative mind from ideas.
Therefore, a trip into nature, taking a break from our worldly problems without the risk of any distraction can drive us to be inspired with an infinite number of new ideas.
And there you have it – 5 exciting and uplifting ways that life and nature can inspire art. So, it is time to get out there, experience the natural world, and feel the creativity taking over you.
