Drawing Landscapes

Foreground Rocks:

The most detailed area of the scene is of course the rocks closest to the viewer in the foreground. Additional care is taken to create more subtle planes and textures in these rocks. The same technique is used. Using 2B .5 mechanical pencil, I shade in the dark shadowing on the left side. I use a F .5 mechanical pencil on the front plane. The pencil stroke is a short random ‘cross-hatching’.

I then apply a layer of 2H graphite using a clutch pencil. Blu-tack is used to create the subtle highlights. A battery-operated eraser is used to touch in the highlights.

The ground is a mixture of smaller pebbles and sand. Using a circularism pencil stroke, a rough texture is created. I create a more even-tone without losing the detail by burnishing a layer of 2H over the ground.

Trees:

Using a very tight scribbling pencil stroke, the background trees are laid in. Not much definition is applied with just a few vertical marks used to identify tree trunks. The foreground tree is laid in using the under-hand pencil grip and the scribble pencil stroke. A F lead, .5 mechanical pencil works well to create the illusion of leaves. Special attention to the outer-most leaves placement is key to the flow of the viewer’s eye movement. Having the upper limbs ‘drape’ over the lighthouse pulls the scene together.

The open spaces between the limbs to let the sky show are critical. This keeps the foreground tree from dominating the upper left hand corner. It also allows the opportunity to ‘show-off’ some of those individual leaves. The branches are also important to offer the impression that this is a tree, even though only small section of the tree is actually visible. After the branch and leaf bundles are in place, I use a battery-operated eraser to lift out highlights on some of the leaves.

As my book for Walter Foster was ready to go to press, it was discovered that I needed one more drawing for the last page. This drawing was selected to fill that void! While I didn't have the opportunity to alter the text for the book, I would like to dedicate this drawing to WetCanvas Drawing Lessons and to all the wonderful artists I have met! Thank you for the opportunity to share my techniques and approaches through these on-line classes.

Here is the final rendering: