Schoolism

Landscape Sketching in Watercolor and Gouache
with Nathan Fowkes

Landscape sketching can be one of the great pleasures for the working artist! This course will provide each student with the experience and understanding for organizing the complexities of the landscape into insightful compositions. We'll focus on capturing the immediacies of light, atmosphere and character of the landscape through location studies. I'll be demonstrating with watercolor and gouache as the preferred sketching medium but students will be welcome to use the medium of their choice. Each week will include a lecture and demonstrations that will guide students step by step through the process of landscape sketching from life. During our time together I'll take you through the practical application of:

- Setting up a no hassle painting kit for on the spot sketching.
- Finding a simple statement within the complexities of the landscape.
- Learning to work within the limitations of your medium and turn them into an advantage.
- Learning to find the subtleties of nature within a limited palette of color.
- Learning to control and best use a full palette of color.
- Understanding principles of landscape composition to best portray your subject.
- Applying the techniques of the impressionists within the confines of a 1 hour on location study.
- Creating the illusion of depth and space within the confines of your two dimensional study.
- Inspiration for sketching everywhere you go for practice, study and fun.

You will be needing some art materials for this class.
Please CLICK HERE to download the list of materials needed.

Lesson Plan

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Lesson Plan

Lesson 1 - The Simple Statement

In my first lecture I'll give an introduction and class overview including materials, process and procedures. From there, we will find solutions to the greatest challenge of landscape painting: managing the vast complexities and millions of details that exist everywhere we look. We'll focus on finding a clear simple statement within the complexities of our landscape.

Assignment: Begin putting together a personal reference file of favorite landscape paintings that you believe you can learn from. Pick 10 of your favorite images and create small painted copies in the range of 3 inches by 5 inches. The studies will be tonal only, no color necessary. Recommended pigments are titanium white gouache (Winsor and Newton permanent white designers gouache) and ivory black.

Lesson 2 - The Values of Light & Shadow

When we see a landscape, our first read is based on its overall value structure (the term value refers to the scale from light to dark). In this lesson I'll show you how to use the simple statement of light and shadow as a foundation for the nuances of color, texture and detail. We'll also study more nuanced value structure for subtlety of mood and atmosphere in our work.

Assignment: Create 6 or more studies from life in value only, focus on the simple overall value statement without adding unnecessary contrasts or details. Don't forget to combine the studies onto a 1 page jpeg with 5000px at greatest length; zip folders will not be needed.

Lesson 3 - Using a Limited Palette

As we introduce color into our paintings, we'll limit our palette to just six pigments: titanium white gouache, yellow ochre, venetian red, ultramarine blue, permanent sap green, and van dyke brown. This will have the benefits of making color mixing manageable while having enough range to paint most of what we see.

Assignment: Create 6 or more studies from life with the limited palette, focus on the simple overall value statement and the subtle relationships of color. Don't forget to combine the studies onto a 1 page jpeg with 5000px at greatest length; zip folders will not be needed.

Lesson 4 - Landscape Composition

From landscapes of high drama to scenes of calm tranquility, each of our pictures must be designed to capture the inspirational quality of each place we paint. In lesson 4 we'll explore ways of capturing the visual interest and primary areas of importance in our pictures.

Assignment: Continuing with the limited palette, add lemon yellow and winsor red or cadmium red. Create 6 or more studies from life using principles of composition as discussed in the lecture. Begin each study by asking the question: what is it about this place that inspired me to paint it?

Lesson 5 - The Design of Edges

For lesson five I'll demonstrate the importance of edges to give a special emphasis to the design of our landscapes and to create the subtleties and softness of nature.

Assignment: Continuing with the limited palette, including lemon yellow and winsor red or cadmium red. Create 6 or more studies from life focusing on the use of edges as discussed in the lecture. Begin each study by considering where areas of hard or soft edges will best be applied.

Lesson 6 - The Full Color Palette

Color design is potentially complex and confusing but there are simple principles that can make color manageable for you. In this lecture, I'll show you concepts for organizing the complexities of color to recreate the harmonies found in nature as well as a sense of mood and environment in your work. I'll demonstrate how to use and mix a full color palette to represent the color subtleties we see.

Assignment: Use the full color palette to create six or more studies from life. The suggested pigments are: permanent white designers gouache, winsor lemon, winsor yellow deep, yellow ochre, winsor orange, winsor red (or cadmium red), permanent alizarin crimson, french ultramarine blue, phthalo blue (winsor blue greenshade), phthalo green (winsor green blueshade), permanent sap green, leaf green (Holbein brand), venetian red (or indian red), raw umber, van dyke brown, ivory black.

Lesson 7 - Creating the Illusion of Space

Sketching the landscape often requires that we create the illusion of hundreds of miles of space within the confines of a small two dimensional study. This requires us to emphasize and even exaggerate visual cues that suggest depth. In this lesson will take a look at simple but effective graphic devices to create three dimensional depth in our two dimensional studies.

Assignment: Continuing with the full color palette; create 6 or more studies from life that create the illusion of space as discussed in the lecture. Begin each study by considering the sense of space in your landscape and how to best create that illusion on the two dimensional page.

Lesson 8 - Framing Your Subject

For this lesson I'll demonstrate finding the compositional framing that best conveys the character and mood of the landscape. We'll take a careful look at positioning the horizon line in the picture plane according to the demands of our subject.

Assignment: Continuing with the full color palette; create 6 or more studies from life that best frame your subject as discussed in the lecture. Begin each study by considering the horizontal or vertical nature of your subject and the best placement of the eye level in the picture plane.

Lesson 9 - Putting It All Together

Landscape sketching requires a firm commitment but also great enthusiasm and fun. My final lecture and demonstrations will combine principles from all the previous lessons as I show you how to make the complexities of landscape sketching cease to be a frustration and turn into a great joy.

Assignment: Paint anything you want, have fun with it! This is an opportunity to show what you can do so knock it out of the park!

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Landscape Sketching in Watercolor and Gouache with Nathan Fowkes

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Scheduled Course Dates:

Mar 19, 2017

May 28, 2017

Full

Aug 6, 2017

Full

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