by Matt Smith

An advertisement for a landscape painting video showed up in my email the other day with a header that read something like “The Five Important Basics to Landscape Painting”. The artist said these are the true basics, not the ones many other artists present. I thought “Hmmmm….I must check that out because I may have been wrong all this time.” I clicked on the trailer and he mentioned five basics, all important, but one was missing…

DRAWING!!! What?! The most important foundational principle is missing? That’s where it all starts. He mentioned design but what’s good design with bad drawing? Bad! He mentioned edges. Yes, they are important but they are an issue of placement so they can be placed under the category of design. For the record, an edge is where two masses meet which is commonly defined by line which is drawing.

When analyzing your subject try to break it down into its most basic components. Very basic. When you do you will come up with drawing, value, design, and color. Texture, edges, etc. depend on the subject and placement so they fall under design. And yes, there’s the initial idea as well, but I’m here to teach structure not ideas. Those are unique to each one of you.Don’t be fooled by the “new” or “trickery”…..stick with the age-old basics and your likelihood of success will be much greater.

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