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Transcript of 7 Landscapes
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Page 1The text and original art in this document are the property of Robert W. Stites, all rights reserved.
Kansas Sunrise (RWS)
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Landscapes
Style
Constables painting at right, is far
more realistic than Monets below,
but Monets had a greater impact
on the world of art, launching the
Impressionist movement just 50
years later.
It is for you to decide whether to
interpret your subject literally like
Constable, or figuratively like
Monet. We give literal examples,because you can always leave out
the detailsbut you cant put
them in if you dont know how. It
is not our intent to suggest that one
style is better than another.
Scope
Though landscapes are a favorite
subject for pastel artists, the
category is so large and varied, thebest we can do in one lesson is to get
you started.
The four objects seen most often in
landscape paintings are water, trees,
rocks, and skies. Water was the
subject of the previous lesson; now
we take up the others, limiting
ourselves to generic representations,
on which the exercises are based.
Alas there will not be time to
consider variations in terrain (hills,
mountains, valleys), or changes in
season (it is always summer in our
examples) but you can learn these
yourself by imitating pictures you like.
Page 2
The Hay Wain by John Constable 1821
Soleil Levant by Claude Monet 1872
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Trees
Trees are easy to paint and draw in two dimensions, which probably
explains why the trees in some beginners landscapes look like paper
cutouts. The challenge is make them look three dimensional, and wehave some tips for that.
Bark
Consider the bark on the trees in the photo at far right; some are light
and smooth, while the one in the foreground has bark thats dark and
furrowed. Other examples show white
bark with angular black marks, and
gray bark that is mottled and peeling.
You have to draw what you see.
Crown
For our generic tree we chose the photo
on the following page, not only for its
beauty, but also because its crown is
representative, being fairly dense with
some exposed branches and a sky hole.
The crown can be globular, conical,
ellipsoidal, or none of the above as in
this case. Deciduous trees tend to bear
their leaves in clumps; a large branch
divides, then subdivides, and so on.
But the leaves which come directly or
indirectly from the same large branch
form a clump, and by painting the
clumps individually, showing the
changes in hue and value, you can add
depth to your trees.
Kids use the same green crayon for
every tree in their color book, but as anartist, you must do better. The sides of
the clumps toward the light are not
only lighter in value, but are a yellower
green than those in shadow, which are
not only darker, but more blue.
Page 3
Trees (unidentified); photo by Mark Robinson
Gray Birch; photo by B. Vasily
Sycamore; photo by Kretyen
Dark, furrowed bark; (RWS)
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Page 4
A Green Ash on the campus of Oxford University; photo by Armando Meynaz
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Page 5
Exercise (20 min)
On a quarter sheet of
pastel paper, do a study
of the generic tree.
Whats a study? Think of
it as a dress rehearsal for
the main event. The great
masters nearly always did
studies before getting
down to business. It is an
excellent way to discover
and work out problems
before taking on what is to
be the finished picture.
Example
Show the tree alone in a field. The light comes
from the far right, giving the foliage an
interesting variety of hues and values.
1. On the rough side of a quarter sheet, draw
the contour of the crown in medium green
hard pastel, outlining the clumps. Leave a
hole for the crown, and make the top twothirds a medium blue, darker at the top.
Apply a medium brown to the lower third;
rub in and fix.
2. Underpaint the crown in soft pastel; it will
show whats beneath the broken color well
be adding, and should be a little on the dark
side. Show some exposed branches and a
skyhole as in the original, then fix.
3. Paint the clumps in dabs of three greens, in
broken color; show some branches, and add
weeds and grasses to the foreground. Touch
up (here the trunk was shortened).
The crown turned out too small as you see, but thats
OK. A study is the way to discover such problems.
3. Tree Study (RWS)
2. Underpainted1 Contour, background, rubbed and fixed
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Page 6
Eroded Stone, photo by Michelle Bartch
Unworn Rocks, photo by The _gut
Worn rocks; photo by AleotoricConsonance
Rocks
Its not at all scientific, but from an artists point of view, thereare just three kinds of rocks. Worn rocks have been smoothed
by rolling over one another, usually in a stream bed. Rocks
dont have to be small to be worn however; a glacier does the
same work on boulders.
Unworn rocks are angular, with flat surfaces along their
fracture planes.
Erodedrocks show the result of long exposure to acidic rain
and wind or water driven particles. The unevenness of
wear tells us rocks are composed of both hard and softminerals.
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Page 7
We cant leave the subject without one more example of aworn rock, this one sculpted by nature into a freckled,
skinny-dipping giant .
Exercise (20 minutes)We see rocks everywhere, but
they dont become part of our
graphic vocabulary because we
rarely try to draw one. Once we
do, we find its not as easy as it
looks. You must show enough
detail and texture to make a
rock distinguishable, or it will
come out looking like potato or
a loaf of bread.
This rock has been eroded and
polished (in places) by particles
carried in the moving water.
Do a study of the rock in this
photo on a quarter sheet of
pastel paper.
Giants backside; photo by tsechuen26
Eroded rock in stream bed; photo by Vorian Harva
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Example:
1. On the rough side of a quarter sheet, lightly draw the rocks contour in medium brown hard pastel and
adjust proportions.
2. Leaving a hole for the rock, paint the water background in blended areas of brown, light green and blue.
3. Lightly underpaint the entire rock in medium brown soft pastel; rub in and fix.
4. Mottle the smooth surfaces with soft pastel broken browns, highlighted in white to suggest reflections
from the wet surface. Shade by hatching, allowing the hatches to follow the direction of curvature.
5. Show turbulence and foam with white soft pastel.
Page 8
Study: Eroded rock in stream (RWS)
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Clouds
The generic cloud shown here is white and
fluffy, with flat undersides in shadow. Put in
the sky first, leaving a hole for the clouds, thenapply white. When you have the shape you
want, fix, and darken the flat bottom.
The blue sky is lighter near the horizon,
getting darker and more saturated as we look
higher. You can just see that effect in this
photo.
We dont often see gray skies portrayed in pastel
pictures; apparently, most artists consider them too
moody. But anything other than a gray sky would have
been distracting as a background for this close-up of
wild grasses.
Page 9
Gray sky background, photo by Staaf
Generic clouds, photo by Ednl
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Assignment
Skies can be spectacular at sunrise and sunset, and they are easier to paint than they look. Do a study from
this tranquil photo, on the smooth side of a quarter sheetof pastel paper.
First, notice how well the composition follows the rule of thirds, with the horizon line about a third of the
way up, and the focal point (two actually) near the horizon about a third of the way in from the left . We
intended to delete the windmill, for fear that two focal points would be confusing, but the picture just doesnt
work without it.
Page 10
Kansas Sunrise; photo by Roy Montgomery
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Example:
1. Do an underpainting in hard pastel to define the hues and their positions.
2. Eliminate details like the fences and building; keep the foreground vague, perhaps some dark weeds andgrasses.
3. For the sun, use bright yellow soft pastel; fix heavily, then apply a final layer of yellow, leaving it
undisturbed. Let the bands of color touch, and where appropriate, blend with a finger to smooth the
transitions. Add the windmill last, with a sharp charcoal pencil.
4. Refine the sky, and touch up.
Page 11
1. Underpainting, Kansas Sunrise (RWS)
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Pastel Painting Lesson Seven: Landscapes
Page 12
The paper loaded up, and I couldnt get an even distribution of saturated color for the sun, even with fixing.
In a situation like this, an abrasive paper (like Wallis) would have come in handy, providing us with another
example of a problem discovered in the study phase, while there is time to do something about it.
4. Kansas Sunrise (RWS)