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Oil Painting Landscapes -Follow These Ideas To Create a Spectacular Landscape!

If you're a true oil painting landscapes aficionado, you find true inspiration in a beautiful landscape!

There's something about a breathtaking landscape that motivates the artist in all of us to capture its essence on canvas. Speaking for myself, I always want to create a piece that reflects my level of emotion, and I want all future viewers of the painting to feel the transference of these same feelings.

Since you are reading this article, I assume that you feel as I do. So, in order to help everyone create some beautiful pieces, I've listed some ideas to help with your next project.

Oil Painting Landscapes Idea #1: Use Your Imagination.

It's permissible to rearrange the elements in the landscape, if you think it'll make a better painting composition. Another option is to borrow elements from different landscapes and put them together in one piece. (Of course you shouldn't do this if your landscape is a readily identifiable scene)

Oil Painting Landscapes Idea #2: It's OK To Leave Some Elements Out.

No one is forcing you to include everything that you see in the landscape you're painting. Please feel free to be selective. You should include the elements that you feel are important, and that characterize this particular landscape. And you should definitely use the landscape as a reference, but its also OK to insert your own personality, temperament, and/or tastes in the painting. After all, It's your work of art. You should paint it anyway you wish!

Oil Painting Landscapes Idea #3: It's Not Cheating to Buy Green Paints

There is this notion in the oil painting world that a true artist has to mix their own greens. Hogwash! It's permissible to buy green paints in a tube rather than mixing your own. One of the main benefits of doing so is that you'll have instant access to particular greens. By the same token, don't limit yourself to only store-bought greens. Go ahead and extend the range of 'ready-made' greens as your inspiration leads you. When mixing a green, bear in mind that green has either a blue or a yellow bias as the starting point. In addition, remember that the shade of green in a landscape will change depending on the time of day. It's a fact that a bluish green hue in the morning may well be a yellowish green by dinner time.

Each different blue/yellow combination will give a different green, plus the variations from the proportions of each you mix. With practice it becomes instinctive to mix the shade of green you're after.

Oil Painting Landscapes Idea #4: The Foreground Is Top Priority

Don't paint the entire landscape with the same degree of detail. It's important to paint less detail in the background of the landscape than you do in the foreground. It's less vital there and gives more 'authority' to the foreground. The difference in detail also helps draw the viewer's eye into the main focus of the landscape painting.

Oil Painting Landscape Idea #5: Consider Creating A Series

OK, you've followed these guidelines religiously, and you now have a masterpiece hanging on the wall. What do you do next? My advice is to paint another one. Be like the Impressionist Claude Monet and paint it again and again, in different lights, seasons, and moods. You may think you'll get bored with the scene, but in reality you start to see more in it. The difference may be the way a tree's shadow tracks around it through the day Or possibly it's how the different light of the harsh midday sun changes the feel of the painting.

It was Picasso that put put it best: "Painting is a blind man's profession" He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen". So if you follow these guidelines, and let your inspiration guide you, then I'm confident you'll create better works of art.

About the Author

Richard's passion is painting in general, and oil painting in particular. He has a website with literally hundreds of articles, videos, etc. on these and other subjects. Please take a look at www.richardgroskopf.com.

I have an oil painting of a landscape signed by H. Brent and I would like to find out more about the painter?

Take it to an art gallery, the library, or google it. If you are lucky, the antiques roadshow could help as well. Good Luck

Edward Seago Oil Landscape Techniques - With Miles Fairhurst

Tags: architecture, art, energy, environment, how to paint oil landscapes, oil, oil landscape artists, oil landscape paintings, oil landscape tutorial, oil landscapes

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 28th, 2009 at 5:53 am and is filed under paintings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.