Before paint was put into tubes and before canvases were portable, most painting (landscape or otherwise) was done in the studio.

Sometime in the 19th century, artists began to experiment with painting on-site. Plein air painting: artists in nature, working from direct observation. Artists still work in this way, and they work in the studio too — painting from their own sketches and photographs.

There is, though, a difference in the experience.

Regardless of the outcome of the painting, the experience of painting from nature is not the same as painting from a photograph you may have found online.

What one feels, smells, and tastes in the studio is not the same as what one experiences with dirt underfoot.

One way is not necessarily better than the other; both methods can produce great works of beauty.

But if you’re painting an alpine meadow and you’ve never stood within one, you might consider putting down the brush and going into nature.