Drawing for the Landscape Painter

Fall at Solstice Farm 6.5 x 8.5” Conte on Paper John Hulsey

With so much interest in plein air painting these days, it’s easy to overlook how important drawing skills can be to the landscape artist. In our plein air workshops, we often encounter students who have good painting skills but lack skill in drawing. Many students want to get right into applying paint without first making a drawing of their subject. This makes as much sense as jumping in a car and entering a highway with no idea of where one is going and no idea of how to get there. In our experience, without considerable practice drawing the landscape, it is impossible to learn how to really see the landscape.

Fundamentally, drawing is both a way of seeing and a way of knowing a subject. If you can draw it, then you own it. It is in your visual library. But the act and art of drawing goes much deeper than a mere recording process. For the artist, drawing is how we know the world. It is an expression o…