An Intro to How to Draw Landscapes!

Thank you for visiting this intro on how to draw landscapes on this site! The goal of this section is to demystify the complexities of how a landscape background is done in digital art!

Is it common for beginners will get lost in the picture figuring out what to paint and how it will interact with the rest of the environment. As well, obtaining the technical knowledge to paint these scenes is sometimes discouraging because there are so many possibilities!

However, it is not that difficult if you can break down landscaping design through what common elements to look for.

Hence, I will break down the landscape elements for you in this introduction. Of course, there will be specific lessons on how to paint each individual element on this site (on subsequent lessons) once you get passed this page!

We will deal with rock formations, forests, snow, sand, and water.

1. Creating mountains and caves

To know how to draw landscapes, you need to learn about earth formation. Perhaps the most common types seen in most landscapes are mountains and caves!

Adding mountains will give your painting a sense of grandeur and depth while creating caves gives a hint of mystery. Therefore, you need to learn the landscape elements of rock formations and rock variations.

In terms of drawing it, you should be familiar with the blocking technique where you block in form using a chalk brush. From there, switch to a smaller round brush and paint in textures where the snow are rock debris are.

Then, you need to multiply and duplicate these variations to form your mountains or caves since it is just expanding the textures of the smaller rocks to form your rocky environment. After that, it's just merging all these duplicated layers and then repainting it!

2. Forests and foliage

To learn how to draw landscapes with forests and foliage, be wary of the different colors associated with overlapping trees. This is where you knowledge of color theory can help you!

Normally, trees that are far away exhibit a light and dull version of the main color you are working with. On top of that, you need to consider the exposing branches.

Start off with building just a simple tree trunk. Since each branch on a certain type of tree differs from another tree, deciding on the trunk forms will determine the tree that you will be painting.

Once you have your trunk, you can then start building the leaves and foliage around that particular tree.

The leaves can be done by just setting your chalk brush shape to spatter so you can quickly block in leaves faster! From there, move towards building an entire forest out of it by duplicating the foliage around and repainting it.

While variation is important, substance is just as significant. That is, for beginner artists, it's always important to locate where the mass of foliage is!

3. Snow and desserts

Learning how to draw landscapes with snow and desserts is actually quite easy because the textures are very similar! In other words, only different colors are used to distinguish sand and snow.

The similar textures are due to the 'lightness' of sand and snow. For example, snow and sand can cover the landscape but can be moved by a simple breeze.

This alone should tell you to use a very faint brush for painting landscape elements with small flakes of sand and snow.

From there, you will learn how to draw variations such as ripples, weathering, and other formations associated with these elements. This is where your smudge brush will come in handy!

There is one more element. However, due to the complexity, mastering your basic core art foundation and your digital tools is a must! This is because everything that you have learned from the previous landscape elements will be used into painting water!

4. Water

Water is a big deal because there are so many possibilities you can do depending on the weather conditions and the environment it is in. For example, calm ponds will have a different painting style compared to raging waves.

Moreover, when you get into painting a waterfall, you will use alternative techniques to display splashes and general flow of the water as it falls down.

Then there are perspective issues like reflections. How will your subject be reflected in the water that he or she is next to?

From the simple example, you can see a lot of textures and techniques that are derived from the other landscape background examples. This is only a start!

All of these landscape elements will be addressed in the lessons on this section on how to draw landscapes digitally.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to help you understand what to expect! For now, continue to follow along with the information I will provide to you because studying and practicing landscape really does help out a lot!

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