Landscape Painting Tips

10 landscape painting tips for any artist. Does such list exist?

More often than not, such advice on how to paint landscapes is for beginning artists.

It is popular to arrange the advice into a structured list of sequential steps. Once these are completed, the painting is created and takes on the appearance of a 'real' painting. This process can be compared to building a house. It is a well-known fact that a house has to be built from the foundations, not from the chimney.

How visual art differs from architecture?

However, it is a little different with art than with architecture. There is real freedom in art today. There are no prohibitions and everything is possible. We can only listen to ourselves and follow the voice of our own inspiration. It is this that will tell us how to paint. The effect can vary.

Truth in art, also in painting landscape

An imperfect work of art may emerge, not an example of art of the masters, but it will be our true work. That is to say, it will be a record of what we have experienced and how we are able to output it in the form of a painting, according to the skills we possess at the time. Is this the end of the process? For example, when we create an imperfect (I avoid the word bad) imag, are we to accept that? My answer is – YES.

Continuity in painting – one of tips for painting landscapes

Let us be forgiving to ourselves. Let us leave the image alone for a while. BUT, LET US PAINT ANOTHER AND ANOTHER. Each successive one is a new experience, a passage through on the way to the goal (even when at the goal another imperfect painting is created). But the artist is a different person after these works.

Then there is time to return to that first painting. Then the artist sees it anew. Now, he already knows how to 'improve' it. Or rather, how to go further along the path that he started when he began that painting. Will he reach the “goal” this time (whatever that means)? Maybe so. Maybe this time the painting will become a perfect painting to which the author can’t add anything more.

Or maybe this "end" will only be a stopover from which, after some time, he will have to wander further through one's inner landscape? Every human has an inner landscape. It is worth finding oneself in it.

My list of tips for painting landscapes:

1. Paint when you feel the need
2. Look for inspiration around you
3. Listen to it and follow the call
4. Make your best while painting
5. Don’t demand from yourself too much
6. Work continuously
7. Look at your work after some time
8. Continuity in painting
9. Make an effort and start where you left off before
10. Recognise that each painting can have a continuation
11. Allow some of your paintings to live their lives. The best way: sell them or give them, e.g. as a gift

The artist has the privilege of disposing of his works. Giving art away to other people is a cool feature of our profession. Not everybody can master art, but every artist can enjoy it.