Making a date with nature

However, as a nation, we have a dwindling understanding of the natural world.

Local artist Laura Blackwood has been considering how art can help us rekindle our relationship with the great outdoors, having spent decades studying and painting the plants, trees and animals around her home near Jedburgh, and believes that taking time to observe and find beauty in nature can help us restore that connection.

She said: “Painting from life is a relaxing and peaceful pastime that can be a brilliant foil to our busy modern lives, but it also provides the chance to see the uniqueness and beauty in each plant or creature. We so seldom give ourselves the time to observe the changing seasons or the detail in the natural world around us, but it is these small and subtle things that hold the key to connection with the natural world.”

In the past, Laura has organised Borders-based art classes that took groups of children and their parents out into the countryside to paint from life.

She added: “We can all feel that we know the natural world, but it is so much more interesting and intricate than we might first think, if we just take the time to look.

“Our countryside is one of our greatest assets, particularly here in the beautiful Borders, and we all play a role in its future health and wellbeing.

“If we can’t take a real interest in nature – really be fascinated by it – then we will have no incentive to care for it.”

Laura’s most recent work – an illustrated wall calendar for 2021 – draws on this theme, with the aim of giving us a practical tool to mark the seasons and connect with nature throughout the year.

Each page shows the kind of wildlife that can be found that month and takes the interesting dual perspective of a ‘bird’s eye view’ at the top of the page, and a ‘worms eye view’ at the foot.

Laura said: “Art can engage us in an imaginative way that neither documentaries nor more factual representations are able to.

“I paint as much as I can directly from life in season, so the appearance of the plants and animals in my work are as accurate as I can make them, but I can also create imagined worlds in the undergrowth or up in the branches of trees that it would be difficult to access even with a camera.

“With the calendar I wanted to create an unusual and intimate visualisation of nature – something you wouldn’t necessarily see while on a walk – as a reminder that there’s always more to nature than we can know.”

Full of detail and animals to spot, Laura says that the calendar is also very popular with children ... she has provided names of all the plants and animals featured in her illustrations at the end of the calendar.

After what has turned out to be quite a difficult year for many, Laura hopes her 2021 calendar will remind people of the joy nature can bring throughout the year, and that even if we can’t get outside as much as we’d like to over the winter, or if Covid-19 continues to restrict our movements, her art can still bring nature to us and help us to appreciate and connect with our wonderful countryside.

The 2021 Nature Calendar is available to view and buy at LauraBlackwood.com