Working from life - in the landscape.

It is far too easy these days to use photographic sources [ including digital mobile phone etc].. print to base artwork ideas from. Particularly here I mean working from 'life' in the landscape. It is useful of course, however, but often not the best way to approach objective art study. Try it yourself, next time, do NOT take your mobile phone, camera, when on a day trip; instead take a sketch book, or paper, and maybe pencil, or even biro, and sit and draw what you see, and you will learn to look and see things in real three dimensions, away from the flatness of a screen, which is also good for hand eye co-ordination and relaxation.

The example below was done on site, in landscape, as a study of historical stone ruins, and no camera was referred to, nor prepared flat image, beforehand, just observational 'looking' at the subject. It is in watercolour, on board. See it in my online artworld store here.

[Kirkham Priory - Yorkshire]; watercolour on board by Simon Gabrielow [2005].