Landscape Drawing with Jennifer
I love the art classes at the Ranch. Spending a leisurely afternoon drawing or painting surrounded by the beautiful landscape of the Ranch…well, there’s not much that’s better than that. I especially love the area where they hold the landscaping class and the sculpture class right outside of the rec room. It’s shady and covered by beautiful vines and tress. Such a lovely area to create art in.
The highlight of the class is our teacher Jennifer. She brings so much light, humor and common sense to drawing and art. You may also recognize Jennifer from teaching the jewelry making class. She started off by telling us that really anyone can create art. We have limitations placed on us when we are younger that make us believe that only a small group of us are truly good at art. However, that is simply not true! It was inspiring to hear her talk and actually it made a lot of sense.
Then she got into the process of drawing landscapes. Like I’ve said in previous posts, I used to do a lot of drawing when I was younger, but it was all self-taught. I’ve never really been into drawing landscapes so I thought this would be a good class for me to challenge myself. In the photos above you can sort of see the process, starting out with the simple things in your view and sketching them out. The tip that I like the most (since I tend to really focus on details in my drawings) is to squint your eyes so that you are seeing only lights and darks. It really helps with shading and it’s something that I’ll definitely use in future drawings.
After giving us the run down of what it is to draw a landscape, she let us loose to find out favorite spot or view to draw. Of course, I had to pick a very complicated landscape with vines weaving in and out of each other. Needless to say, I didn’t finish my drawing in the time allotted for the class (although, I could just come back and it draw that same spot any time), but I really took those key tips away with me. Not to mention I had a lovely afternoon. 🙂
