‘Using Drawing to connect with Nature and Enhance Wellbeing’
Keywords: Nature, Drawing, Field work, Wellbeing, Outdoors, Observation, Imagination, Meditation, Sensory Learning.
As many have found the pandemic to be an isolating and anxious experience, with much of daily life mediated through screens, we propose a L+T project to investigate the potential for drawing to reconnect with the natural world and to enhance wellbeing.
Drawing can offer ways of understanding and ‘being’ in natural settings. Rather than approaching the natural world as something that needs to be learned to be understood, drawing enables a slowing of attention, and foregrounds sensory attention to colour, sounds, textures and a close observation of living things.
Much research has been done into the benefits of outdoor learning for children (eg. Maynard, 2007) and the wellbeing generated by spending time outside (eg. Mabey, 2005). There is also a wide- ranging hinterland of artistic practice which is centred on the artist creatively responding to natural landscapes- for example psychogeographic experiments, land art, ‘plein air’ painting. Similarly, ‘sketching’ a view, such as the ‘walk to see’ project instigated by Helen Stephenson (2021), is a well-established practice. Art therapy often utilises visualisation techniques to express and process more than can be put into words.
Drawing is an act of attention that engages with many forms of cognition – observational, imaginative, collaborative, interpretative. The proposal is for participating staff from the SoA to share teaching strategies for engaging with the natural world through drawing.
Objectives
- To explore drawing modes- observational, imaginative, collaborative, interpretative- focusing attention on the natural world.
- To create a set of propositions /teaching materials that can be used by staff and students within the university to enhance wellbeing
- To collate these findings into a publishable outcome
- To work with ecologists, educators and psychologists within the university to contextualise this work
- To understand the health sector contexts for ‘art for wellbeing’, for example ‘social prescribing’ of art practice by GPs, and embed this within professional practice modules.
- To think about scalability – how these materials could be used in public facing projects, working with schools, care homes, hospitals etc
References
Mabey, R (2005) The Nature Cure
Maynard, T (2007) Forest Schools in Great Britain: an initial exploration
Forest bathing article https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/08/forest-bathing-japanese-practice-in-west-wellbeing
Stephens, H (2021) https://www.helenstephens.com/blogpots/tag/%23walktosee
Wild Swimming article https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/06/water-magnet-deep-allure-swimming-bonnie-tsui
Drawing for Wellbeing 