Tips for Creating Landscapes

Photo of the View from the top of Cedar Butte

When painting landscapes, I like to use a reference photo as a guide to help capture atmospheric and realistic detail. You may also find inspiration by painting outdoors (en plen air). Here's a photo I took at the top of Cedar Butte. See my September 2022 post, Painting Using MS Paint 3D -- How To.

My Paint 3D Landscape

I painted the background first, then added foreground elements such as bushes and trees later. For oils and acrylics, you may choose to lay down a darker color for the background and work up in value for the addition of clouds. For pastels, simply start with paper that is already a neutral (not white) color.

Use color temperature to create the illusion of depth. Add opposite colors to either cool down the color of mountains in the background or warm up the trees in the foreground. I chose to lay down bands of color in my background then framed the sky with an outline of the mountains. I chose a cooler purple for my mountains and gradually got warmer toward the foreground. My painting is brighter than the photo. Adding the trees over the background in contrasting dark green (instead of black) continued to elevate the overall temperature.

Bob Ross painting with a cabin

Create a focal point in your in the composition. This can be a barn or small outbuilding (palette knife comes in handy for the texture), or even a large, interesting tree. You may choose to make the barn stand out by using sharp contrast in colors or values and shading for more emphasis. This painting by Bob Ross would be fun to try in pastels.

Another Bob Ross painting using a palette knife
and a two-inch brush

Use the palette knife to add texture and crisp edges, Bob Ross used the edge of his knife to create water lines next to the shoreline and ripples in the water. It also helps create texture on snowy mountains. A large dry brush pulls down paint for the reflection. Then light, side-to-side strokes soften and blend for the illusion of water. His use of temperature in the rainbow-colored sky almost makes his composition like two different paintings.

Jeu and Bryce at Lake Sawyer
(2022), Patterson

Simplify the clutter (edit out unwanted details). Give the illusion of numbers, but don't try to paint every individual tree you see. Map out the overall shapes for the grouping of trees, then add just a few details. This is something that Impressionists like Monet mastered in suggesting a forest or line of trees.

Mary's Creepy Landscape

Try using a limited palette of colors and subtle variations between them. Use brighter, more saturated colors and more delicate brushwork for the focal point (compared to the rest of the painting). This one was done by one of my students at Franke Tobey Jones' Senior University. I'm guessing that the bright moon is the focal point. My favorite part is the turbulent water.

Beach in Pourville (1882), Monet

Embrace imperfection. You don't have to be completely accurate with values, colors, and structure as you would in a still-life or portrait. Impressionists like Claude Monet loved to paint beach scenes, often void of human figures, to create a mood and a soft composition of color. The only real value or shading comes in the cliffs framing the bottom right corner.

Landscape at Collioure (1905), Matisse

Employ timed sketches to improve your judgment. Practice painting on smaller canvases using quick sketches and limiting the time it takes to complete your painting. Famous artists used studies to plan the placement of elements, color scheme, and composition. It may also help you to decide when your painting is finished.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872),
Thomas Moran

Let's finish with this spectacular landscape of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone by Thomas Moran. I love the contrast between the foreground and sunlit canyon. He painted several versions of the canyon, capturing the scenic view in all four seasons.

My brothers and their wives visited Yellowstone recently while attending my daughter's wedding in Montana. Two trees frame the view of the watery focal point in this photograph by my sister-in-law.