A Look At My Sketchbook: Landscapes and Tips
Hello my Moons,
I love painting and drawing landscapes into my work but I often hear from other artists that this is something they find difficult or dull. I thought I would talk a bit about my enjoyment of landscapes and creating worlds around my characters all while showing you another look into my sketchbook!
My love of drawing landscapes I believe stems from my love of being out in nature. Sometimes when I am out wandering, even in the suburbs, certain things will trigger this sensation that feels like being drugged. A sudden high. Combinations of dizziness, joy, nostalgia. It is weird. But this is something I am always chasing in my artwork. Even as a child I frequently tried to paint (very rough) landscapes into my work.
The thing about landscapes is that they require some balance. At times, a piece calls for something epic, with whatever character I choose simply being another part of the vast puzzle of nature. For other pieces, I might choose to simplify the landscape or even leave it out altogether depending on what my main character is doing.
Leaving the landscape out altogether, however, is pretty rare for me when it comes to larger work. For me, the landscape is also another character, and I often get just as much joy out of painting the rocky sides of a mountain as I do painting the fuzzy sides of a fox.
However, not all art NEEDS to have a landscape. And for that, I truly respect that many of my favourite artists often leave them out. But for those of you who feel your art does need a background and surrounding world for your characters, here are a few tips I can recommend to getting more comfortable at composing them.
Do lots of studies! Landscape studies are helpful in understanding shape and composition. They can help you make sense of what makes a landscape beautiful to you, as well as what makes them feel real. The more I have paid attention to real landscapes, the more I have been able to keep my backgrounds from feeling like flat, one dimensional cutouts setup on a stage.
Do SIMPLE studies, and value studies. Value studies are monochromatic studies to help you establish depth and composition. I will link you to a great example of some black and white landscape studies. Notice how simple these are, yet they have wonderful, dynamic shapes and clear depth. Studies like this are something you can enjoy doing while you are watching TV or relaxing somewhere. Just playing with loose, interesting shapes can also be a great way to help you build a landscape.
The thing about landscapes and backgrounds that I believe can make them so intimidating is that they are big, detailed, and so, so varied! Even if you choose not to directly reference from a photo, you can sometimes study the structures of landscapes from photos to help you build the basics of your composition. You can even use shapes like boxes to help you understand the perspectives of the things you want to put into your background. Breaking landscapes down into smaller, more manageable steps can really be useful and take a lot of the weight off you when you go to do your final piece. In time, your mind will also start to memorize the fundamentals of landscape design and you will be able to pull more and more information straight from your head!
Be well~
~Aria
