Simplification and Massing for Landscape Painters

It’s easy to paint a thousand points of light with a thousand brushstrokes. It’s much more difficult — but infinitely more eloquent — to paint a thousand points of light with only one hundred strokes.” – Mitchell Albala, from “Landscape Painting: Essential Concepts and Techniques for Plein Air and Studio Practice”The ability to simplify — to translate nature’s complexity into fewer and more readable shapes and patterns — is the most important skill for the landscape painter. Painting or drawing a shape is not that difficult, but seeing a shape through layers of color, detail and complexity requires a practiced shift in perception — an ability to see the forest and the trees. In this class, working from your own photos and/or those supplied by your instructor, you will do several exercises and paintings, designed to encourage your eye and hand toward the simplified shape interpretation that is the backbone of the landscape painting experience. Essential coursework for plein air painters.

This workshop will cover:

• how the first step of simplification is through a “limited focus”
• how limited values encourage shape differentiation
• shape combining and the hierarchy of shapes — how to discriminate between major driver shapes and minor shapes
• how to lay a foundation with a restricted number of shapes
• how to balance detail and simplicity with the 80/20 rule

Required: Masks to be worn throughout workshop (proof of vaccination not required).

Level: advanced beginner to intermediate; for painters in oil, pastel, watercolor, and acrylic