An Artist’s Guide to Designing your Landscape

Hi. Hello. Hello. I don't know. We're having. We're having a slow start. Let's see. Well, it is afternoon. Oh, okay. Hello. Good afternoon, everybody. Or morning or wherever you are. How are you? As usual, I just feel like I want to create a space for us to breathe together. I don't know how your day is going, how your week is going, but taking a little time to come together and pause, it's exciting around the studio. So I apologize for any background noise. Each week is an adventure. So. Hello, I'm Megan Miller, and we're talking about.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Designing a landscape for you. Designing a life, a landscape. I happen to be a landscape artist, a painter, so I go out in the field, and that is where I found calm in my life. I needed it to get me through a lot of different things. And so I'm always encouraging. I share my journey and encourage other people to find ways to calm themselves. Because. Because I feel like we have so many things coming at us and so much information and bringing in what is helpful and trying things and then editing out what we don't need.

And I often look to art as such a guide for me and even looking at previous artists. I love studying artists. And you don't have to be a creative to be here and to be. And you don't. It's okay if you don't know anything. Sometimes people are intimidated when they come into the studio and they're, I don't know anything about art. Great. How do you feel when you look at this piece? And how do you feel in the space and really tapping into yourself and knowing what lights you up and finding those inspirations?

So today I've been thinking about how we all design our own life. And it's so exactly when you're designing a painting or a picture, looking at something and deciding what's important. And so this is one cool thing. And so then if you go to a gallery, a lot of paintings, like master paintings. This is a Monet. He's one of my favorite. Only use three big shapes. And so you can see here, there's like a piece of land, water, distant land, and sky. And then it is created out of simplicity. And the reason I find that fascinating is because during that process, if he was outside doing plein air, there's all these choices in front of us, and so we can try to bring everything in and tell this story, but more often than not, something is created out of three or four big shapes.

So deciding what that is for you, what are Your three or four big important things in your life. Like for me, I love walking outside, so that's a big shape for me. I need that to calm myself, to calm my nervous system. And I try to share that with others because sometimes it's just a little glimpse of seeing someone else doing that act of love for themselves in the morning, getting up and going out for that walk. I think we can really inspire other people by caring for ourselves. So picking out those things for your.

Your life and keeping it simple and bringing things in and trying things and remembering that nothing's permanent. I heard somewhere, and it could have been on Cadre, that we can all walk into a room and try things, and if it's, you know, not for you, you can walk out. That means a painting, a relationship, a job, a lot of different things. You can try it. The problem is, it's if we sit down in that room and we don't leave, it's kind of like that putting your lawn chair in the intersection and not getting up and moving and making decisions.

So as far as being a painter goes, I'll use another example. I went out to this field. This is a piece that I did outside. And there was so much beauty going on around me. And there's a lot of different ways that I could see telling this story, but I had to really find my center and see what story I wanted to tell. And you all have that power of going out into the day, which is so exciting and so motivating and looking at a scene or a place and deciding what is your story. And again, with jobs, I think that we can try things and be motivated maybe by other people's reactions.

Like people are excited for us to do things, but then sitting really quiet quietly and noticing, is this right for me? I've studied with a lot of great painters and I've seen them do things out in the field and then realized, but that's. That's not the story that I want to tell. But we can learn from each other and pick up ways to create and bring that with us every day. Oh, I love this one. Thank you. Thank you, Anna. So this is just a little quick check in for this week, and if any has any questions, feel free to ask.

But again, like taking art and finding ways to relax the nervous system and just breathing, I try to implement that every day. And going out and spending time and observing nature, that's our greatest teacher. And finding ways to relax ourselves. So that's my reminder for the week. And it's just a little quick check in, and I hope that you're all doing well. Thank you.