Art and nature go hand in hand. The natural world has been the subject of the artist since humans daubed wild animals on cave walls.

I think it’s because we are nature.

It’s easy to forget in today’s world of cities and traffic and computers and skyscrapers.

But nature is always there, making the most of cracks in pavement, offering shade and oxygen in tree lined streets and local parks, sprouting irrepressibly in even the tiniest front gardens, adorning window ledges and showing up indoors in pots.

And that’s not even including the wilderness outside the towns and cities.

For the past few years I’ve been immersing myself in nature both wild and cultivated, getting dirt under my nails growing my first vegetable garden, noticing the nuances of the garden as the seasons change, swimming in cold water, collecting natural treasures and adorning my home with them, and making art in and with the natural world.

I’ve found it deeply calming, endlessly fascinating, and infinitely inspiring creatively.

I’m putting together a course to share everything I’ve learned so far, so you can enjoy the creative benefits of nature beyond just looking at it.

It’s not quite ready yet, but you can find out more and sign up for updates at the bottom of the post.

In the meantime, here are just three ways you can make art with nature, to get the ideas flowing:

Sketchbook studies

Whether that means striding across fields, sitting on the beach, visiting the botanical gardens, or simply drawing the vase of flowers on your kitchen table, a sketchbook is brilliant for working with nature in spontaneous ways.

In a sketchbook you can work fast and loose to capture the immediacy and fleeting existence of a flower, the brief alighting of a butterfly, or the way a wave is folding.

And it’s portable, so you can take one everywhere and always be ready for connecting with nature through marks and colour.

{With an elastic band or bulldog clips, it can also double as a flower press!}

Land art

A brilliant way to really immerse in the sensory experience of being in nature and engage with the essential life lesson of learning to let go.

Everything we need to make art is already around us, we just have to open our eyes to it and work with what nature’s offering us.

Making materials

Eco printing, making pigments from rocks and inks from plants, or making your own paintbrushes and mark making tools; there are so many ways to work with the elements of the natural environment – without harming it – to create your art.

If you’d like to spend more time in and with nature, restoring your soul and inspiring your art, we’ll be exploring all these ideas and many more in a rich, immersive art adventure I’m calling Into Nature.

If you’d like to know more, you can find out all the info here.