The Impact of Weather

My studio is comfortable. I have my chair, my desks, lighting, music, heat and coffee - all I need. Under these conditions, I come as far as I can get to having control over the watercolor medium. However, there is something about this comfortable, predictable situation that bores me. Ofcourse I enjoy being able to create exactly what I want, but after some time I have a tendency to dig myself down into a motif or a technique. For me, this is a big part of being creative. I take one step forward, then some steps back, and then forward again - but it is important not to get stuck.

This is one of the reasons why I enjoy painting outside, and particularly in bad weather. When I paint landscapes, I get inspiration from my own experiences. That is why I tend to paint the same landscapes and motifs several times, because they are strong memories of something I have experienced. To avoid getting stuck too long in the same memories, I need to get outside and gain new.

Painting in the field is often so different from painting in the studio, that it feels like starting from scratch. My field paintings rarely become as good as the studio work, but they become something else. When I was in Norway last October, I spent most of the days painting out by the coast. In these cases I normally work in my sketchbooks because they are easy to handle in the wind. As I started putting some color down on a small landscape, heavy rain came in from the ocean and washed the entire painting away. I had to run back to the car with the sketchbook over my head, and was sure everything was ruined. However, looking at the result, I see something new, a certain mood. Not much is left of what I initially painted, but this little study is the most true painting of rain that I have ever made. Maybe it is only true to me because of my memory around it, but who can make a more honest painting of heavy autumn rain, than the rain itself? This is definitely something to bring back to the studio.