what painting outdoors has revealed to me
Returning to oil painting, observation, and healing my nervous system in nature.
The following is a written compainion to video titled “I painted outdoors in 50 mph winds” on my Youtube Channel. The title and thumbnail are tounge and cheek but my intention is to have my work reach more people who need it.
Throughout the following essay you will see stills from the footage my spouse brilliantly shot while we were out together. This script surprised me while writing it and waded into a territory that revealed the true roots of my evolving personal philosophy. I hope you enjoy both versions when time is spacious and you feel curious.
I painted in 50 mile an hour winds on accident. It didn't start out with the intention of doing something so extreme, I am absolutely not Mr. Beast, honestly, my gentle nervous system can’t handle him at all. I thought the weather would be far more in my favor but I learned when my camp turned 90 degree days into 20 degree overnight lows that the Eastern Sierras are unpredictable.
Today, I want to show you my process for painting Laurel Mountain and in doing so, I want to argue that getting outside to observe the sculptures, sounds, and colors of the natural world is transformative and vital for our creativity.
Painting outside changed my life and the way that I look at the world. It has helped me realign my artistic practice with my actual values. It no longer matters to me if a New York curator sees my work as valuable, that’s not the point of making art, to me. The point is that art has become my place of peace.
It didn't matter to me that I was freezing cold in all of these wind gusts. It didn't matter to me that the skin on my hands felt like sandpaper afterwards for three days. It didn't matter that I had to brace the easel against my hips and hands, pushing back against the wind that wanted to turn my setup into a sail. It didn’t matter that I was hearing trees crack and bend along their trunks in the gusts.
I persisted. I observed, I was present and that's what this is all about. If you're new here, I'm Mel, and I'm an adventure artist, who is trying to persistently bloom. I talk about my art, my teaching practice, and my growing abstinence from certain tech tools to cultivate a sense of well-being.
On this day, in this wild weather, I was able to access the magic that is a flow state, the feeling where you're so connected to what you see and what you are creating that you are unfazed by what’ s happening around you. It’s a deep exercise in resilience, a thing we should all be cultivating in these uncertain times.
Let me introduce you to the setting. This place is Convict Lake at the foot of Laurel Mountain towering just shy of 12,000 feet above me. The Sierra Nevada always humbles me. I grew up in Chicago, amongst skyscrapers that are only 10% of the size of these rocks. The Metamorphic formations that make up this range are mindblowing, they look like a painting the way that they swirl together in dips and crevices.
Convict Lake got its name after an incident in the late 1800s, when a group of convicts escaped from prison in Nevada, and they thought that this lake, despite its high winds, would make a good shelter. After they were found, a shootout occurred, giving the place the name Convict Lake. While this name stuck I am also quite fond of the original name the Mono People gave the lake Wit-sa-nap, which related to the lake being a safe haven for magical fish with child-like spirits. That idea conjurs the image of the Kodama in Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke for me, and I love it.
I was called to paint the lake after driving past the rock formations at a quick clip on the 395. I had to see where those formations went. I had to see what the colors were like up close. As I prepared my composition and began to draw, I realized these formations had already been painted by the earth herself. All the different layers of folded metamorphic rock look as though they're a psychedelic marbled print. I found myself a bit intimidated, worried the textures would be hard to convey.
But I centered back to the presence. What colors did I see? Could I just get them blocked out enough in case it got too windy to keep at it? Once I got started adding a base color, the gusts began kicking in. I had to focus on my breath and my balance. Being okay with stopping to hold the easel steady in the wind, but using those moments of pause became a reason to observe more deeply. I was cold, but in flow, the wind whipping the fishing boats closer and closer to the shore.
The magical thing that happens when you go out and you paint in nature, when you observe the things that you're seeing over a long span, instead of scrolling, you get into this rhythm; you can dance with whatever happens.
Painting in nature isn't so much about rendering something perfectly as it is to just experience the magic that is in looking, in being, in experiencing a moment of peace. The weather was definitely unfavorable in this moment, sure, but the beauty around me was favorable to the mindset I was chasing.
I feel like learning to be present in the moment and learning to simply be with what is is one of the things that I missed when going to art school. I studied observatonal painting from life but maybe this wisdom around presence went over my head because I was too young, too foolish to know. It’s through the life experience of deep grief, learning to accept things like the inevitability of change and death that mindfulness starts to make sense to me.
Painting from observation is more than just a skill. It’s a practice of stillness that has completely transformed me. It forces me to breathe and to stay in my body, and to just look, and to be captured and enraptured by wonder.
Here I am mixing the color for and painting in the sky, so satisfying to get color just right. As I am laying on thicker and thicker layers you can see the white caps forming on the lake behind me, the fishing boats that are out on the water are starting to question their own choice to come to Convict Lake today.
I spent my formative years as an artist working primarily from photos. Learning how to be good at rendering what I see as close to exact as possible. Working from photos gave me the most opportunity to control what was going to happen. A thing that I think we all do in life when we are young, in our twenties, we long for control in our planning, in our ambitions. Though, the certain type of world that we assumed would be there to support all of our plans and dreaming seems gone now, or deeply out of reach, but I still have hope.
Now, I have to be with color, with 50 mph wind gusts, and with the acceptance that what I paint will surprise me. To be an artist is to accept that you’ll never know everything, and you are in a constant state of learning and trying to grow, like being a kid again.
When I gift myself this time to simply get out, get in touch with my childlike sense of wonder and feel a sense of real hope, being present with the earth and all of her changes, I stop worrying about being good enough. It allows me to just be with persistence as my main focus.
Getting out in nature like this, no matter what the conditions are, is a choice to turn away from our phones, to get away from our screens and the distractions that are so easy for us, and to turn towards ourselves, our minds, and what we feel is possible.
When I observe in nature, I see sculptures in the rock formations carved by plate tectonics, I hear a symphony of birdsong, and the color in the light of the natural world provides endless inspiration for me. Painting like this starts to feel like play in the same way that I experienced imaginative play as a kid. I’m free and loose and a little goofy.
I make marks when I'm painting out in nature that I wouldn't make in the studio because I'm too careful. The time constraint and weather changing quickly forces me to have to be adaptive and willing to accept what something is, where I would fuss over it and get anxious over it back home.
This type of art is the perfect balm to my anxious personality. If you're reading this and you're feeling like, damn Mel, I relate to this so much and I want to try to make art in nature, but the idea of oil painting in 50 mile an hour winds sounds pretty terrible.
Don't worry. I'm not suggesting that you get out in 50 mile an hour winds intentionally and throw a bunch of weight in the back of your easel like I do.
For the beginner creative. I recommend that instead you go out and you observe. You look. That's the first step. Looking is half of the battle. See what you notice.
One of my favorite things I did in order to start feeling confident out in nature again was just taking notes on my phone in my notes app of the different colors I was seeing. Trying to describe them clearly was a great first exercise. To try this yourself, relate the colors you see to common objects or items that feel familiar to you. If you have your own practice of observing in nature, share it with me or any questions you have in the comments.
Before I share the finished painting, if you've watched this far and you're thinking "Man, I want to feel playful and at peace when I'm being creative, I want to feel like my inner kid.” I have good news.
I am working on a project called The Hiker's Way. I'm completely rewriting The Artist’s Way for a modern neurodiverse and busy audience. I'm taking some of the meaningful strategies, leaving the ones that didn’t work me or my community, and sharing my own that I have found in these moments to make a transformative experience for folks to get out in nature and open up to their creative sense of play.
If that sounds up your alley, subscribe to this Substack. It’s free to join, and there are paid options too if you’d like to support my work as a patron.
In the next week or so, I’ll be announcing info on here about where to get access to Week Zero of The Hiker’s Way for free. Yes, free. In that week, you’ll get access to four podcasts that will teach you about my tools that have helped me heal my relationship to art, creativity, and to the world. I hope that it helps you develop a deep enthusiasm for the outdoors and map out a path towards your most creative self. I’m so looking forward to all of us going on a group retreat together.
Here I am, it back in the studio, adding in some of the greens from the eastern High Desert chaparral all along the sides here. You can see it alongside these horses riding on the lakeshore trail. Most of that blue-ish light green is sage, and it smells incredible.
When I’m painting at home, I forget about how things smell and feel. I can be so fussy and worry about every detail. My perfectionism returns and I want to put in every edge that you see along the mountain. But because this started out in nature, I feel more free to allow my marks to be my marks, to allow the way that I'm painting to become my unique voice. Instead of trying to render something perfectly, I can just express it and give the impression of it. That's what made the impressionists so good. They weren't trying to be perfect. They were just letting the paint and its incredible swell of color do its thing and be beautiful as it is. So that's what I'm doing here, as I'm finishing up.
Here are the finishing touches, AND the finished painting!
If you’d like to purchase this piece, it is $375, with free shipping within the United States. You can buy it and my other plein air work here.
If you liked this essay, you should go check out more of the videos on my YouTube channel and other essays I have written here. No judgement if you like something from 6 months or a year ago. Knowing that my writing is getting read or seen in some capacity means so much. Your readership and viewership is something I deeply value, no matter when it happens.
Final FYI, I am currently booking custom creative retreat experiences to help you get out in nature and make some art! I have one spot left open this month. Learn more here.
That’s all I have to share for today. Until next time, Stay creative and find your own ways to persistently bloom.
