Drawing out in nature and the cultivation of awe
There’s nothing I like more than being immersed in the landscape and lost in my sketchbook page - have you tried it? And can we cultivate awe? And why we should...
Here’s what being outdoors drawing can do for me, how about you?
I build memories of a place in a far deeper way than taking a photograph would because I have to look carefully, for a long time, I notice subtle shifts of line, tone, colour, value and I can feel bodily moved by dramatic contrasts of light across hills or the tiniest detail of a leaf
I remember the whole day afterwards - down to what I ate, what I thought about, the season, the taste and scent of the air and the feeling of the breeze or sun on my skin
I look at the view in some way without judgement - it is simply as it is.
I don’t feel the need to be in any way accurate - just to capture the feeling is what it is about.
I feel as if I fully experience and therefore I feel ALIVE.
I learn a LOT about my assumptions (which is illuminating on MANY levels!!).
I can play.
I can experiment with materials and colour - sometimes I make marks with what’s around me (an accidental marmite sandwich blotch?).
I can go home feeling that I have encapsulated the day somehow and imprinted it within me as well as on the page.
I notice and feel awestruck - whether it’s a big vista, an epic landscape. or a little ladybird exploring my hand.
I lose all sense of time and hunger (sometimes) and am in the FLOW.
The sense of awe does it to me every time, as long as I remember to set an intention to feel it.
What is awe?
When we feel awe there’s a sense of being small but connected to the world. There can be a sense that there is something greater than ourself. Scientists have discovered that something beneficial actually happens in the prefrontal cortex of the brain when there is a sense of awe (and scientists make it true huh? … it’s not just my imagination??)
They have then gone on to find that regular encounters with awe provoking moments result in:
an increased affinity for others
being more comfortable with uncertainty / less need for closure (which is desirable because we can’t be certain about much and we don’t get closure often!)
manage risk more comfortably
aids redefining yourself and being comfortable with change (impermanence in Buddhist speak)
aids in the ability to move forward
Beau Lotto, neuroscientist, believes that we can use awe to enter conflict in a different way e.g. to have the humility and courage to not know - to have a question not an answer, to seek to understand rather than to convince.
How amazing that we could use art induced awe to mitigate against anger and conflict!!!! Can you see the potential for THAT in this world? I can!
Where do we find awe?
In grandeur, we find awe, yes, but also in the tiny, allowing us to rescale ourselves, finding awe in gratitude for the simple as well as the epic - it helps us to expand!!!
Watch this beautiful TED talk here from Beau - with gorgeous artistry and an awe inspiring performance from Cirque de Soleil:
Beau Lotto on how we experience awe
I got engrossed in drawing this lovely tiny mermaid’s purse on the beach in Wales. Getting awestruck by little things ….
So, awe dissolves the ego and makes us feel connected -
Here is another Ted Talk (they’re only about 15 mins each - fetch a cuppa!) David Baron speaks to how one glance of something like a total eclipse can change a life - he says we must cherish short but awe inspiring moments - their value is not related to time spent in situ but how it changes your years ahead.
Is awe the same as reverence?
Whereas awe may be characterized as an overwhelming "sensitivity to greatness," reverence is seen more as "acknowledging a subjective response to something excellent in a personal (moral or spiritual) way, but qualitatively above oneself.
Robert C. Solomon, professor of philosophy, describes awe as passive, but reverence as active, noting that the feeling of awe (i.e. becoming awestruck) implies paralysis, whereas feelings of reverence are associated more with active engagement and responsibility toward that which one reveres. I don’t know - what an interesting thought (I am happy with non-closure on this hahaha!).
Nature, science, literature, philosophy, great philosophers, leaders, artists, art, music, wisdom, and beauty may each act as the stimulus and focus of reverence.
Worship, gratitude and appreciation can spring from gratitude and that’s good right? I am happy to worship the beauty of a landscape and in a sense that is what drawing out there does for me. When I think of the correlation between yoga and art making (which I do a lot) I would think of this as Bhakti. (I will write more about this in another post).
How can you set the intention to experience this?
and if you were thinking of going out and about to capture how you feel in the presence of some beautiful place, remember this little, but perfect, poem from Mary Oliver. Here she talks encourages us to write a simple poem perhaps, but you could think of this as an invitation to draw or play with paint:
Praying:
It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway
into thanks,
and a silence in which another voice may speak.
-Mary Oliver
Go draw and give thanks to that world to it and for its own sake!
It’s damn healthy.
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Thank you 🥰
When i’m outside drawing I slow down in a way that I can’t achieve inside my studio. Maybe it’s to do with the physical barriers - the way the wind catches the paper and tosses it across the lawn; the way the landscape is never still so it’s impossible to capture a “perfect” image; the way the rain drips onto the page so my best charcoal drawings become smudges. I love all of that - the slowness, the imperfection, the letting go of expectation. I think drawing outside IS an act of reverence for the Earth and absolutely awe inspiring. Thanks for sharing x