9 rules from Stoicism grounded in wisdom, and translated beautifully into the life of a landscape painter, tailored to help guide artistic focus.

Here they are and how they can be used serve as guiding principles for a landscape painter’s practice and mindset:

1. Wake Up Early → Catch the Light

Start your day with the sunrise. For a landscape painter, morning light isn’t just poetic—it’s practical & uplifting. Early hours offer calm winds, long shadows, and golden tones that make for dynamic compositions. Plus, painting before distractions pile up trains you to prioritize your craft while leaving room to plan for getting serious stuff done.

2. Focus on Effort, Not Results → Show Up and Paint

Measure success by time spent painting, not the final piece.Mastery comes from mileage. Some days inspiration finds you and your brush sings; other days it stutters. Either way, showing up consistently builds your skill and voice. Trust the process, not perfection.

3. Read Every Day → Study the Masters (and Nature)

Feed your eye and mind with beauty, history, and ideas. Read art books, journals, or nature guides. Learn how Monet handled water, how Georgia O’Keeffe simplified shape, how John F. Carlson explained mass and value or how Edgar Payne handled composition. Understanding landscape is part visual, part intellectual.

4. Strict with Yourself, Forgiving of Others → Disciplined in Practice, Open in Spirit

Keep high standards for your own work ethic—but stay generous with other artists. Avoid the trap of comparison. Hold yourself to regular painting sessions, thoughtful critique, and study—but never judge others harshly. Every artist is fighting their own private battle with the canvas and in life.

5. Seek Out Challenges → Paint What Scares You

Don’t always choose the easy scene. Complex lighting? Tricky perspective? A windy plein air day? Long solo hike to you mountain vista? All Good… Struggle is the forge of growth. Take on scenes or conditions you’re not sure you can handle—that’s where breakthroughs happen.

6. Stay a Student → Keep Learning Forever

Every canvas is a classroom.Take workshops. Copy great paintings. Watch the clouds. Be curious about trees, skies, architecture, shadow shapes. Ask questions (both of others and yourself) Whether you’ve painted for 3 months or 30 years, there’s always more to discover.

7. Set healthy boundaries → Guard Your Creative Energy

Avoid critics who drain you or peers who compete instead of support. This doesn’t necessarily need to be an absolute rule. Seek a tribe that pushes you upward. Stay clear of energy vampires, internet trolls, and gatekeepers. Your time, confidence, and joy in painting are too precious to waste. Painting is often a lonely pursuit but you are better off alone than with people and activities that pull you away from your work.

8. Think About Death → Make Art Like It Matters

Time is short, and the world is changing. Paint what you love now. Capture that fleeting light. Pay homage to that disappearing forest. Record this season of your life, even if only for yourself. Mortality sharpens focus and deepens meaning. This increases you odds of making meaningful progress in your art journey.

9. Focus on What You Can Control → Trust Your Practice, Not the Market

You can’t control sales, social media algorithms, or gallery attention.You can control how often you paint, how closely you observe, how often you draw in your sketchbook, how often you intentionally look at great art (instead of mindlessly scrolling on your phone) and how fully you commit to each stroke. That’s where your power lies—and your peace of mind, too.

Final Thought

Landscape painting isn’t just a skill stack—it’s a way of life. These 9 rules are not rigid laws, but gentle anchors — principles. They remind us that success in art and life is less about talent, achievement, attention and more about intention, discipline, curiosity, and heart.