“The basis of human happiness is the possibility to be together with nature, to see it and to talk to it.” –Leo Tolstoy
In the Alps
As I type these words, I sit outside on the patio tucked into the back corner of our house near Prague. Bees buzz lazily around the dainty blue catmint and fading lavender planted beside the patio, and creamy roses tinged in raspberry pink dazzle in the setting sunlight. A light breeze whisks across the yard. Puffy cumulus clouds sail across the powdery blue sky. Songbirds call out as they dart toward the feeder. And the notable Prague passenger pigeons make their whispering rounds of flight in tight formation. I type and I can’t help smiling, because there is something so free about being in this exact spot. I love to be outdoors.
Writing En Plein Air
I posted this photo this week on twitter, of my little spot on the patio as I worked on my work-in-progress novel. Of course, as a mom of three active boys home for the summer, Nerf bullets flew past me constantly. But for me, it’s still bliss.
Working / playing / painting / exercising outdoors has something extra compared with doing the same activities indoors. Perhaps the artists have it right, with their En Plein Air (meaning: In Open Air) Painting. There is so much more inspiration and creativity to be found while working outdoors, in open air.
“If I could make musicians of you all, you would thereby profit as painters. Everything in nature is harmony; a little too much, or else too little, disturbs the scale and makes a false note. One must reach the point of singing true with the pencil or with brush quite as much as with the voice; rightness of forms is like rightness of sounds.” –Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, French Neoclassical Painter
While in Austria, we’ve marveled at the Red Bull (energy drink) headquarters in Fuscl. Check out their outdoors/indoors creative arrangement by clicking here: the building is amazing … not to mention the Alps as the setting.
Writing in Italy, along the Mediterranean
Whether I’m hiking in the Alps, walking along the Mediterranean, or sitting on my back patio, being outdoors in open air is the place I find indescribable wells of inspiration.
How about you? Where is your dream place to work? If you have a photo, you can attach it to your Comment, below. I’d love to hear about / and see your favorite Plein Air workplace!
