Feed your soul

Behind the old farmhouse we live in is an orchard.

It’s unmanaged, scruffy and overgrown, and it seems that this year, even the people who usually come to pick the best of the apples aren’t coming.

I love this orchard. It’s just being itself, and I think the wildlife prefers it this way too.

I certainly do.

In the morning, if it’s sunny, the light makes strong light and shadow shapes with the trees.

This little painting above, a 7 x 5, one hour study of one of my favourite trees, was done in the morning.

For most of the time I was working on it, I was pretty sure it was going to be a complete mess, but somehow it came together at the end.

And even though it’s just a quick little study, it’s one of my most favourite paintings that I’ve done lately.

I think because I made no demands of it. The light was nice, so I grabbed my kit and went out and painted.

Just to paint, regardless of what happened.

Just to be in the moment, outside in the fresh air, and painting.

My plein air kit was ready to go, because a good friend came to visit me for a day just recently, and we went out painting together.

She came at a time when my energy has been depleted after a quite a long, busy period of teaching, painting and live streaming.

She reminded me that you can’t give if you’re empty.

And she gave me a little challenge: To get out at least once a week and do a small plein air painting.

It turned out to be just what I needed, and just getting out in the autumn sunshine to paint has turned out to be strong medicine.

So after a short break and a period of illness and exhaustion, I’m starting to get back on my feet.

As you probably know, I stopped the Friday lives just recently because I desperately needed a break. I’m about to start them up again – possibly this Friday, but we’ll see – although I’m going to do them a little less frequently.

I think once a fortnight will be more manageable. We’ll still get to connect and paint together, and I’ll hopefully be able to sustain it more easily.

In the meantime, I’ll be finding more time for these little, low pressure plein air excursions.

For the things that are feeding my soul at the moment.

And I think perhaps it will be good to start sharing the experience of making them with you, too, as I go along.

Hopefully it will be interesting, sometimes useful to you and for me, it will be a return to a more relaxed and less pressured way of sharing my learning for its own sake, as I used to before I ever started teaching.

Because I’ve realised that actually, that’s part of what feeds my soul too.

In about a week, I’m going to turn 60.

That will make it exactly 20 years since I resolved to get out of the financially comfortable but soul-destroying digital marketing jobs I was doing, and to return full time to art.

As some of you who have been with me for a long time will know, back then I resolved to share my learning journey as I taught myself to paint.

I’m still here. And 20 years later, I find that’s still a big part of what makes me tick.

So you can probably expect a few more rambling emails like this with little plein air studies in them. (The unsubscribe link is right at the bottom of this email…)

In the meantime, I have a couple of painting sessions to record to wrap up the last flower painting workshop, which will be coming your way very soon, if you were a part of that workshop.

And as my energy returns, I’ve got some ideas brewing for another one, focused on ways to address the most common unhelpful habits I see when I’m teaching and critiquing paintings.

A little slower-paced, I think, and a little more focused. Kind of like I’m intending for myself, too. I’ll share more about that soon.

I hope this email finds you well and at your easel as often as you can be, and with as much sunshine as you can find in what can often seem increasingly dark days.

Best wishes,

Paul