How To Paint A Landscape Portrait Painting

There are major difficulties for any art beginner. To learn to paint and draw fast, it helps if you admire the artwork of your art teacher before you learn the drawing and painting techniques required. It also helps if you

1. Appreciate the Art rules you are shown
2. Accept the reasons why Art laws work

Recently, this problem was illustrated while walking between the display stands of an Arts, Crafts and Design show.

My friend explained that none of the top quality watercolor landscape artists painted hills the way he wanted to paint them. Rather than use soft thin washes to represent misty far distant peaks… What he wanted was to show the craggy solidity of the rocks of a mountain he had climbed and knew so well.

Instead of showing the mountain as a backdrop for foreground detail, he wanted the mountain to be the main subject of his painting.On the face of it this goes against the principles of watercolor landscape painting. It seemed that he wanted to ignore the normally accepted rules of landscape painting.

The sheer scale of a mountain usually requires softening of texture to allow it to sit in its environment. Distance is normally shown by keeping detail to a minimum, with a tonal quality similar to the sky. Foreground detail increases in intensity with stronger, sharper color and tone.

To deliberately go against the normal rules of art takes more than courage. It requires significant art knowledge and free-thinking to find alternative drawing and painting techniques to achieve success.

So, do you think my friend will fail in his mountain painting quest? How do you think my friend could manage to turn watercolor landscape painting rules to his advantage?

Well, there is an alternative way that could work…

• Try to treat one mountain as the main subject
• Use background hills and the foreground to frame the main subject

This sounds to be a total contradiction to the normal watercolor landscape principles. However, if you were to treat the mountain as a portrait subject the rules change. As with a family painting of your child or favorite pet, the main focus will be the face. This is where the main attention to detail is required.

By increasing the detail of rocks, crags, crevices, gulleys and the snow-line… you lead the viewer’s eye to what you want to be seen. The key to making this work is to keep the levels of other background and foreground detail to a minimum. This way the eye is drawn directly to your chosen point of focus… the mountain.

The resulting work of art may not follow the general laws of watercolor landscape painting but it does take advantage of the rules of good portrait art.

It may not be a good idea to deliberately break the established rules of Landscape Art… But there is nothing stopping you from choosing to take advantage of a different set of Art rules.

 

Michael Dale is the author of 1 Color Is Best (the quick and easy way to learn to paint watercolor) and 3 Colors Are All You Need (mix any color you want fast using only 3 colors). Visit http://www.Paint-And-Draw.com to find out more. If you haven’t done so already, why not take a look at this video that features some of Michael Dale’s Simple Watercolor Paintings

 

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