A New Mantra

Another mantra is now stuck to my easel, "It's The Painting Not The Place". When I paint a landscape (it works fine with the fantasy work I do) I always try and get it as though you are there and therefore too literal to what's in front of me. But that is the dreaded "Illustrative" approach which tends to make your work look like many other artists and too photographic. To make my work look more distinctive it needs to be more about the painting and less about the place depicted. Many artists' work I like tend to choose a quite ordinary scene and then paint it in such a way that it becomes interesting and beautiful. I suppose avoiding The Picturesque would be a start. Maybe not explaining it very well but I know what I mean...I think.