5th June 2020
Landscapes
Today we have a landscape workshop with author, naturalist, and field arts instructor Roseann Hanson.
This is a prerecorded session and you can watch the video below. Enjoy!
To prepare for the session, please find a list of resources here:
Quick Landscape Captures - with Roseann Hanson
When nature journaling and field sketching, capturing the larger landscape around you can really enhance the scope of your journal, telling us something more about where you were and what you were seeing, in addition to “up close” studies of plants and animals.
But where to start? It’s seems so daunting. Roseann Hanson will share with you her techniques for how to:
How to choose what to sketch
Find the main shapes to start sketching quickly
Map out your sketch first using a series of little dots
Use the right colors and values to add the right depth and details
Learn to stop and not over-work your sketch!
Working from Google Earth and images, the workshop will take you on a virtual field trip and include live -sketching sessions with the subject displayed alongside the sketching and a running thought - and technique narrative will be shared.
Roseann Hanson is an author, naturalist, and field arts instructor. Her new book, Nature Journaling for a Wild Life, is an 8-week self-guided course in how to get started exploring the world through nature sketching and writing. You can find her book and blog at www.exploringoverland.com/fieldarts.
Nature journaling prompts and ideas
Landscape is everything you can see when you look across an area of land, including hills, rivers, buildings, trees, and plants. What is interesting about your local landscape? Take a closer look at the scenery near your home, perhaps you’ll notice things you have missed before. Why not try making a local map and draw the landscape features.
Take some time to watch the sun as it is lowering towards the horizon. Watch the landscape and take note of the changes in colour that you observe. Can you capture these colour changes in your journal?
John Muir Laws talks about drawing ‘Landscapitos’, mini-landscapes that you can sketch quickly to capture the scene. Try sketching a few quick landscapitos on your journal page. Does it feel easier and more manageable than a full page drawing?
John Muir Laws shares a workshop on quick sketching landscapes in 5-minues or less!
Another workshop by John Muir Laws on drawing landscapes. In this workshop he talks about simplifying your sketch into foreground, middle and background and how to draw differently in each of these three areas to show depth in your landscape.
Watch over the shoulder of Marley Peifer (The Nature Journal Show) as he tackles a landscape sketch of a coastal scene.
Learn more
Every landscape has such importance for the wildlife which lives there; and there are so many different types! Here are some landscape links to get you thinking:
To find out about different types of landscape features, take a trip around the world here with National Geographic!
You will find more information about natural landscape types, and some useful photographs, here on this website.
Drawing and painting the landscape has always been culturally important to people. This interesting article from My Modern Met shows our connection with landscape through art and how artists have interpreted the backdrop of nature’s scenery through the ages.
Natural Navigation is the art of finding your way around the landscape, using nature as your guide. Natural navigators learn to read the sun, moon, stars, weather, land, sea, plants and animals. It is possible to navigate naturally on land or water, in the wild or even in cities.
Tristan Gooley, known as The Natural Navigator, says ‘Everything outdoors is a clue. Every plant, animal, cloud or star is both a sign and part of our map’. Tristan uses this approach as a means to enrich journeys and connect with the world around us. Find out about this unique way of reading the landscape on his website here.