Trading cool lake breezes on the dock in my favorite red Adirondack chair for Texas heat in my wicker chair on the house-length back porch of the old Rhoads Texas ranch house is a indicate that summer for our family has ended. It was hard to exit the Adirondack lakes because I never want summer to end, nonetheless it'southward always nice to be in the caress of our abode here in Austin.  Plus, if I had summer all the time, I'd never capeesh it similar I do.

This morning the heat is intense, and the natural grasses in our little slice of heaven are parched, begging for h2o, and looking a little shriveled up. However the scrub oaks offer rich sage greens and the deep green cedars seem to thrive in the dry climate and oven-similar heat, which will last through mid-October. This spot, in spite of the barren climate, offers its own form of beauty — a identify I'm grateful to call home.

Though dead silent this morn as anybody catches up on lost slumber, our firm has been a flurry of activeness as the kids return home to their friends, who have all been visiting to tell their stories of summertime. Boxes take to be opened and suitcases of clothes never used take to be unpacked to restore gild to our routines.

Summer was a time to tiresome down, and presently my life of intense concern travel begins.

Gold Silence

Slowing down isn't something I ever considered very important because I tend to be a high-speed, "on to the side by side chore" kind of guy. I walk fast, I work fast, and I'm highly productive because life has so many things that need to get done.

Rushing Through My Fine art

When photography was my hobby, I'd rush to great locations, take a quick shot, and so move on to the next potential photo. But painting helped me encounter the value of slowing downwardly, enjoying a spot, and condign a role of nature. Slowing downwardly and painting is just what my soul needed. In fact, my friend the slap-up Russian painter Nikolai Dubovik taught me that he, and many others in his country, use painting equally an human activity of meditation and prayer. I find that when I paint, I'yard having a continual dialogue with God. I find myself in a meditative country, lost in the rich greens, the crashing ocean waves, or the afar mountains. It simply doesn't get much amend.

I of my honey readers in England, Kate Edge, wrote me this week to say this:

"By far the hardest thing to be today is to be at peace, to be centered in the place of stillness where the Spirit of God resides as it conspicuously does in Creation. The miraculous sunset which you witnessed is without limit, it is just merely a full flow of joyfulness in the creation of colour which all of us register with our retinas too."

She goes on to write,

"Painting is a response to the pure beauty we are blessed to witness and which we honour by the desire to wish to capture, which is also the want to remember that moment when nosotros were nowadays in listen with the eternal. When yous permit get of all techniques and must try to practise this or that, in that location is some other, deeper painter within which does not have an calendar. It flows its wisdom over the sheet, and if it is given the space before the busy mind engages what it wants to do in the extraction procedure from nature, into a rectangle, someone else flows through the heart and heed, and it registers a different feel altogether in the brush, and the outcome.

"When Turner exhibited the painting The Fighting Temeraire at the Royal Academy in 1839, it created an enormous response from the public. Only the history of the painting included his seeing the ship being tugged just outside Margate behind a blazing sunset, and given his tremendous memory and note-taking, the emotion information technology evoked in him remained. He would never role with the painting despite numerous offers, and he came to refer to it equally his 'Darling.'

"The point of this is, I am sure, Eric, you have paintings that you have actually loved to paint and you lot would be reluctant to office with. The evolving process of painting is being empathetic towards our attempts to realize that honey, and when nosotros do make progress, information technology as well signals  an inner change in us.

"It's expert to compare our efforts with others, encounter masterworks, but it is more than of import to quietly recognize how nosotros see nature and communicate that experience. All of usa have perfection in our Deoxyribonucleic acid, and ane of the great ways to get in touch with that is to sit quietly with Nature and allow ourselves to truthfully respond, and have the response besides!!!! Simply know that in our re-creations we are on an unfolding path of happiness, as you say, which links us firmly with the Creator."

It's About United states

Kate opened my optics in new means with this lovely note, but information technology isn't about me, it's virtually us. You and me, and those you dear. What would happen if we all spent more than time in bear upon with nature?

My morning walk in the deep woods, down the dirt path to the lake where we have spent our summers for decades, is something I look frontwards to each morning, and something I miss when I'm not in that location. It'southward time in nature, time with the Creator, and information technology impacts my response to everything throughout the day.

Touching Base of operations with Cosmos

This reflects the reason I'yard and so insistent on finding means to accomplish millions of people and help them discover painting. Though I know painting volition requite them rich challenges, wonderful experiences, and a artistic outlet, it's being outdoors, losing yourself, and touching base with Creation that makes the feel so important.

Remarkably, it's rare to come across an outdoor painter who is angry, unhappy, or conveying an ego the size of Texas, and I think it's because they are in nature, still, looking at one spot, and taking it in. It's the stillness that makes this special and gives them peace.

It's also why we are teaching veterans how to paint, and why I've enlisted thousands of painters beyond the U.S. to get to schools, play my documentary on plein air painting , and invite others to learn to paint. Information technology'south why I accept gratis lessons online , because I believe painting outdoors opens hearts and calms us inwardly. And I'm hearing from people all over the world who accept tried it and found this aforementioned peace.

Though this little weekly missive started out reaching merely painters, the 100,000-plus readers at present come from all walks of life. If y'all're ane of them, please know this message isn't about painting, though you might have fun trying information technology. Information technology's most stillness in nature.

Family Frenzy

Nosotros're all living very busy lives. We're not communicating with our families when we're all on our phones around the dinner table. We're in a world of abiding stimulation, feeling the need to not let a second pass united states by without a new e-mail service or social media post. Though it's a wonderful time to be alive and to gather information, it'southward also a dangerous time of addiction when our phones and social media posts become more important than dear, human interaction, and communication with our Creator, however you lot define that.

On occasion I take ane of my 16-year-quondam triplets out painting with me. Often information technology's a battle to go them to come because their phones tend to rule their attending, just this summertime at my Adirondack painting event my son Brady spent the week with me painting, off his phone, and told me he had so much fun he did not miss it. Every minute was occupied not with a small screen, but with a big canvas.

Without sounding similar an old school dotard, our families need leadership abroad from their addictions, then they can realize what else is out there — then they don't abound upward and just visit places on their phones or in virtual reality. Nosotros need experiences in nature, and nosotros all need, somehow, to plant ourselves in 1 place to have it in. That's why I observe painting so appealing; it satisfies my decorated mind'southward need to be doing something, nonetheless it offers me peace and meditation.

Soon your summer will come up to an end. Schools are starting, vacations are ending, and time alone with nature often becomes less easy to find. If there is time, give yourself this souvenir of one spot, breathing the air, smelling the odour of pines, and staring into the rich colors of nature. Information technology will feed your soul.


Eric Rhoads

PS: Because of my podcast and this blog, lots of people have decided to believe me when I tell them no special talent is required to learn painting, it but takes post-obit a procedure and the courage to endeavour. The issue is that a couple of hundred people have shown upwardly at our Plein Air Convention & Expo to learn to paint for the commencement fourth dimension and started their path toward a lifetime of painting. Many have also shown up at my Publisher'due south Invitational retreats. If you want to come hang out with us in Banff, Lake Louise, and the Canadian Rockies this coming October, we welcome painters at all levels, including beginners. Nosotros're merely out to have fun, connect with nature, and hang out with other painters.

PPS: I'm thankful for all the people who have reached out about our cool newFACE conference, and I want to apply this opportunity to say thank you for signing up. I'one thousand told we're making fine art history by the fact that then many amazing superlative tier instructors will be teaching in the same place. If you lot've not signed upward yet, you tinsalve $400 if you sign up before Labor Twenty-four hour period Sept. three.