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drawing landscapes

I am trying to work on landscapes and was wondering if any of you had a "bible" (photographic or artistic) that you refer to. In addition I would love to eventually draw in a "3d" manner and don't want short cuts used in painting but instead fully understand the anatomy of the landscape before using the shortcuts.

Perspective tutorials, etc would be a great help. I've read the perspective made easy book and I didn't really understand it. I think I need more of a step by step process in how a landscape is drawn visually rather than a verbal description.

thanks for the help!

Loomis's "Successful Drawing" is a good one for perspective. You can apply what you learn from it to landscapes. http://fineart.sk/index.php?s=16&cat=15 The Artistic Reference to landscapes is awesome for ideas. http://www.amazon.com/Artists-Photo-Reference-Gary-Greene/dp/1581804539 Maybe you can get that one from your library.

In terms of an artist's bible, I know there are various books (and now magazines) available.

I'm self-taught, but when I do a landscape I try very hard to draw what I see. I begin by making my horizon line somewhere about 2/3 of the way down from the top of my paper or canvas.

My next step is to place a center line, then frame my drawing either to the left or right of that line. I usually just draw in enough to get a basic image (more details when I'm sketching on canvas to make a painting in oils).

One thing I did some time ago (and I've repeated it once) was to take a class in perspective drawing. I found it very helpful, and having my work from the class reminds me of steps I need to take when memory (or RL) have caused a rusting of my work.

Hope this helps & all the best:)

An older topic, but I thought I'd put my two cents in.

I'm currently enrolled in a class called 'Landscapes and Urban Environment', which deals with movements and concepts of landscape from the renaissance til now. While I can't help on the technical end of executing art, I think it's important to study why and how you illustrate the land. There are lots of essays (some boring, Charles Harrison is impossible to read) on certain issues you might want to (or anyone) investigate while learning to draw their characters in settings. I'd study some writings on Cezanne and what impressionists and then modern painters were hoping to achieve and get away from, what photographers and critics thought of the use of photography and what it captured on film meant, and look at this website : http://www.diacenter.org/km/

If that link dies for some reason, it's about the Komar and Melamid project where a variety of countries were surveyed for what the public would want the most in a painting, and the least. It's simply something to chew on, because most furry art appeals to a certain public and is illustrative in nature. What you illustrate, in any style you choose, will affect the entire environment, and you have all the tools to control what your audience sees and feels. Thankfully buttloads of Europeans and Americans wrote about it starting around the 18th century, so there's lots to read on the subject. :P As far as other cultures, I'm not so well read, but specifically the chinese and japanese scroll painters I know dealt with the same artistic issues as 'westerners' did and had a different logic for a long time about the space in a canvas. I wish I had more to say on that subject, but.. yeah.

Lol I liked the comment about "buttloads of Europeans and Americans writing".

Do you find the class interesting by the way? I never thought of taking a landscape class but sometimes the research done to study other artists and movements really helps.

thanks Street Jaguar :)

The class is interesting, yes, especially just how nitty gritty art critics got about what 'landscape' means since the 1800s. Some post modern critics have gone so far as to argue that landscape, as a genre, has died, because landscape as a concept is self evident and needs something else to support itself. Mostly it's made me look at my own art and how I plan to use space, or if I draw what I'll draw for a setting. I hate a lot of landscape paintings now because I can't see past the "effet de (insert weather or lighthouse)" or the fact that people sell landscapes to people who want to have colorful landscapes in their house...

Anyway, landscape isn't some neutral space to which we can put things on top of and control entirely.

Can anyone take a photo in landscape mode?

url=http://www.innerbody.com/

I don't know about it being a bible... but I tend to watch a lot of PBS painting shows, which tend to specialize in landscape painting.