RICHARD SWANN ART

Ah, the great outdoors.  There’s loads of it – hills, rivers, fields, trees, all sorts of stuff, and it doesn’t need paying.

Sure, the light changes every five minutes, you’ve got about an hour before it starts raining and this field probably belongs to an angry psychopath but think how that’s going to stop you dithering. No agonising about colour choices and the meaning of art and spending hours deciding which view to select.  Frankly with a load of painting gear to lug about, right here will do.  And there you are, a finished daub in one hit.  Which is more than you’ve managed in the past week.

A good idea is to hit the great outdoors mob-handed, if there’s a whole bunch of you out there, you are, by the authority of numbers, normal.  Making anyone else wandering around a cagoule-wearing freak who has done nothing to earn their sandwiches except stare slack-jawed at some cows.  And take some pensioners with you, they’ll find the only spot for miles with a view, out of the wind, somewhere to sit and within shuffling distance of a toilet.  I usually finish two 16cm X 20cm panels in a five hour excursion, not much more than note-taking but it feels like being a proper artist.

Rock-a-Nore from the pier

Near Crowhurst

Another Bit Near Crowhurst

Hastings Pier