"Woodland Rhythms": An Experience in Drawing the Landscape from Life
I remember the experience that I had while drawing this
view of a wooded landscape of Southwestern Ohio. It was a lovely day in early spring—the type
that calls to you to leave all of your mundane tasks
behind and embrace the beauty of the moment in the sunny warmth of the fresh air that carries
the scent of newness in the currents of a gentle breeze.
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| Spring Unfolding, and beckoning to me to journey into the landscape |
Answering that call to enjoy
the day, I took with me a large sketchbook and an assortment of drawing
pencils. I didn’t have a specific
destination on mind, and so I just began to walk until
came near one of the many little wooded retreats one finds on the campus of Wright State University--and indeed in many places in this area of Ohio.
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| "Woodland Rhythms" Pencil on Paper, by Linda L. Anderson |
Entering into the
environment, I took in all that I saw. With keen observation, I noticed the
soft leaf-strewn ground supporting wondrous configurations of low-lying bushes
and the skyward reaching forms of trees, their umber trunks inter-spaced in architectural
intervals, some with vines in arabesque moving around trunks and branches in
sinuous rhythms.
I had barely stepped into
this environment of trees and dappled light, yet almost in an instant, my senses were alive
and responsive.
I sat down upon a rounded and
moss-covered rock and just took in all that surrounded me. I observed the visual interchange of the
tender green leaves and grasses emerging while remnants of past seasons formed
a backdrop. I noticed how these added textural notes and the crisp edges of the organic traces of autumn and winter contrasted the delicate
forms and colors of spring.
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| Roots |
After awhile, I thought to
begin a drawing of all that surrounded me from the perspective of being at the
center of this place. I placed my
drawing tools within easy reach and I propped up my sketchbook on my knees. But I felt I could not begin.
The wooded environment I
found myself in was so full of life and visual patterns, forms and textures
that when it came to that moment of attempting to draw all that surrounded me,
I wasn’t sure how to proceed.
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| Redbud in Blossom |
And so I sat for another
stretch of moments and began to meditate—to just peacefully sit in awareness of
the life that was growing and changing and existing, in all of its variety. And
as I allowed myself to be in this state of relationship to my surroundings, I
became aware of a change within me. I
realized a growing sense of feeling at one with this community of trees as they
grew from the same earth that was host to the skeletal layers of the decaying
autumn leaves interspersed with roots and strewn branches among grass, lichen, moss
and stone.
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| Arboreal Embrace |
Those moments that I spent in
responsive silence within this natural environment forever transformed my
manner of responding to—or seeing the natural world. And once that transformation of the way that
I place myself in relationship with the landscape environment occurred, I could
draw.
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| Drawing the Landscape |
I could then draw with
fluidity and empathetic perception what had previously seemed a chaotic tangle
of visual information. I relinquished my
reliance on the type of seeing that occurs as the analytical mind seeks
organize information.
 | |
| Detail of "Woodland Rhythms" Pencil on Paper, by Linda L. Anderson |
And as I relinquished this
manner of seeing, instead allowing all of my senses to participate in coming to
know and respond to this landscape, my drawing emerged from this deeper understanding
and fuller perception of the natural environment that encircled me. Then, what
I was drawing was a felt response to the harmonious flow and union between the
life-infused forms that shared this environment. And my drawing reveals the
sense of harmony and flow that I perceived and experienced as a being—as an
artist responding in creative union with all that surrounded me in that moment
in time.
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