Nature as Art

We lucked out by unknowingly moving to an area full of artists. Our seasonal neighbour happens to be a painter, who has also designed a program for introducing and encouraging art for kids. This afternoon he brought his program, another neighbour (new to us) and her daughter over for the afternoon.
The program draws attention to the connection of nature and art. The art in eARTh, how beauty and art is all around us. His program; called Look See Paint, takes you from just looking at nature to really seeing the detail, the small, the big, the lines, the connection we have. He then gave an inspiring and beautiful talk about individuality, authenticity and expressions being art. We definitely felt more than able to create beauty with our brush. That alone is a gift.
Next we were guided through watercolour, learning some techniques in blending, brush strokes, etc as fundamentals, but still remembering that the art is already within us.
View finders were given to each of the artists to use as a tool to See nature as a canvas. We played with depth and distance. We would have painted outside next, the rain had us back inside unfortunately. The next hour was spent playing with what we saw on paper.
We were not only gifted with a great afternoon, our friend gave each of us a kit for outdoor painting. Monday, if the rain holds off, we are heading to 'our' beach for a painting session.