LANDSCAPE THOUGHTS…
There are so many ways that you can set about painting a landscape, so it is important that you experiment and find a style/ medium / surface that suits you. I can only tell students what I like and how I do it…but everyones tastes and preferences will be different.
It’s good to take a look at other artists work in galleries, books or on Instagram – save images that you like to folders and try to pin down in your mind WHY it is you like them or, just as importantly - why you don’t.
Which scene to choose?
You should choose to paint a scene that is personal to you… try to paint the essence of the scene rather than the scene itself. If you are not painting ‘En Plein Air’ try to put yourself back there, remember the light, the temperature, the atmosphere, who you were with. What triggered you to take the photo- why there? Why then? - paint that! Sometimes it helps to state your intention before you begin –choose three words that you want to convey in the painting and focus on those.
Join me for a Landscape workshop and we’ll give it a go!
Visit the same place multiple times - as the impressionists did…paint it at different times of day / different times of year.
Once you’ve painted the same scene a few times you can pretty much put the photo away and paint with a feeling and a memory of it. The things that are important will stay with you and the unnecessary details will fall away.
There is no right or wrong and in terms of its creation, your only aim should be to enjoy yourself and try and get a sense of place, try to capture the light– and how it felt when you were there.
Just a few of over 30 ‘Rouen Cathedral’ paintings Monet made in 1892 and 1893. Rouen, Normandy.
I love the one top right…if you think of tone on a scale of 10, with white being 1 and black being 10 - he has managed to compress his tonal range to within a band from about 2-4 (high key) and still describe the form accurately. Amazing!
The contrast, colours and shadows indicate the weather conditions, temeperature, if the sun was shining and if so- what time of day it is.
Think about each of them before you go on reading and see if you get the same impression as me (time of year/ time of day / weather conditions)…
I imagine:
Top left: it’s a cool, cloudy, wet day. The warmth in the archways is inherent in the stone, not created by the sun
Top middle: strong shadows, mid day, mid summer
Top right: Feels quite autumnal, quite eerie, still some warmth left in the sun
Bottom left: a cool, clear, winters day, mid afternon
Bottom middle: Autumn, golden hour, sun low in the sky creating long shadows
Bottom right: A fresh, clear morning early in the year.