Tips to help you with your landscape paintings.

There''''s something about a spectacular landscape that makes my fingers itch to capture its

essence on canvas, to be able to create a landscape painting that generates the same intense

emotion in someone who views the painting as the landscape did in me. If you needed any

incentive besides the beauty of a landscape to tackle a landscape painting, there''''s also the

fact that landscapes are one of the top-selling subjects for paintings (see this survey).

Here are some tips to help you with your next landscape painting.

Landscape Painting Tip No 1: Don''''t Put Everything In
You''''re not obliged to include everything that you see in the landscape you''''re painting

simply because it is there in real life. (In fact, I''''d go as far as to say that if you do

this, then you might as well take a photo and have it printed on canvas.) Be selective,

include the strong elements that characterise that particular landscape.
Use the landscape as a reference, to provide you with the information you need to paint the

elements, but don''''t slavishly follow it.

Landscape Painting Tip No 2: Use Your Imagination
If it makes for a stronger painting composition, don''''t hesitate to rearrange the elements in

the landscape. Or take things from different landscapes and put them together in one

painting. (Obviously this doesn''''t apply if you''''re painting a famous, readily identifiable

scene, but the majority of landscape paintings are not of postcard scenes, but rather to

capture the essence of a landscape.)

Landscape Painting Tip No 3: Give the Foreground Preference
Don''''t paint the whole landscape to the same degree of detail: paint less detail in the

background of the landscape than you do in the foreground. It''''s less important there and

gives more''''authority''''to what''''s in the foreground. The difference in detail also helps draw

the viewer''''s eye into the main focus of the landscape painting.

Landscape Painting Tip No 4: It''''s Not Cheating to Buy Green Paints
You''''re not ''''cheating'''' if you buy green paints in a tube rather than mixing your own. One of

the main benefits of doing this is that it means you always have instant access to

particular greens. But don''''t limit yourself; extend the range of  ''''ready-made'''' greens by

adding blue or yellow to it.

Landscape Painting Tip No 5: Get to Know How to Mix Greens
To quote Picasso: ''''They''''ll sell you thousands of greens. Veronese green and emerald green

and cadmium green and any sort of green you like; but that particular green, never." The

variety and intensity of greens that occur in nature is quite awesome. When mixing a green,

use the fact that green have either a blue or a yellow bias as the starting point in

determining the proportions you mix. (But remember the shade of green something is in a

landscape does change depending on the time of day and what was a bluish green this morning

may well be a yellowish green this evening.)

Each different blue/yellow combination will give a different green, plus the variations from

the proportions of each you mix. With practise it becomes instinctive to mix the shade of

green you''''re after. Take an afternoon to practise mixing your own greens, making a colour

chart to record which paints gave you what results. Also experiment mixing with two blues

and two yellows; and mixing blue or yellow to a ''''ready-made'''' green.

Landscape Painting Tip No 6: Instant Muted Greens
Mix a little black with various yellows and you''''ll see that it produces a range of muted

(or ''''dirty'''' ) greens and khakis. (Remember to add the black to the yellow, not yellow to

black; you need mix in only a little black paint to darken a yellow, but it will take a

comparatively large amount of yellow paint to lighten a black.)

Landscape Painting Tip No 7: Do a Series
Don''''t think that because you''''ve painted a particular landscape once, you''''re now done with

it. Be like the Impressionist Claude Monet and paint it again and again, in different

lights, seasons, and moods. You won''''t get bored with the scene, but instead you start to see

more in it. For example, the way a tree''''s shadow tracks around it through the day, and how

the different the light of the harsh midday sun is to that of sunrise and sunset. For

further inspiration for painting the same scene again, take a look at the photos of

landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy of a particular scene taken through a range of light

conditions and seasons.