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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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.

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The Hay Wain by John Constable 1821

Soleil Levant by Claude Monet 1872


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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.

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Trees (unidentified); photo by Mark Robinson

Gray Birch; photo by B. Vasily

Sycamore; photo by Kretyen

Dark, furrowed bark; (RWS)


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Page 4

A Green Ash on the campus of Oxford University; photo by Armando Meynaz


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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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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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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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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.

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Study: Eroded rock in stream (RWS)


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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.

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Gray sky background, photo by Staaf

Generic clouds, photo by Ednl


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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.

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Kansas Sunrise; photo by Roy Montgomery


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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.

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1. Underpainting, Kansas Sunrise (RWS)


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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)

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