Nature and Landscape Drawing
Landscape questions test depth, atmosphere and the simplification of complex natural forms. The examiner looks for clear foreground, middle ground and background, believable trees, and a sky and ground that belong to the same moment of light.
Depth and atmosphere
- Atmospheric (aerial) perspective: distant forms are lighter in value, cooler and bluer, lower in contrast, and softer at the edges. Near forms are darker, warmer and sharper.
- Overlapping shapes and diminishing size do most of the work of depth; detail decreases with distance.
- Place the horizon away from the middle of the sheet, usually on a third, and keep the strongest contrast at the focal area.
Trees and sky
- A trunk tapers from base to tip, and major branches divide alternately rather than in perfect pairs.
- Foliage is drawn as clumps of light and shadow, not as individual leaves; a few clumps define the crown, and branches should be seen entering and leaving it.
- Sky is deeper at the zenith and paler near the horizon. Clouds have flatter bases and rounded tops, with the lit side facing the sun.
- Water reflects the object darker and with less contrast, broken by horizontal ripple strokes.
- Include a scale marker: a figure, hut, fence or animal.
Worked example
A roadside tree. Its base sits on the lower third and the trunk on a vertical third, so the composition holds the rule of thirds. The trunk is drawn with taper and a slight lean, two main branches fork upward, and the crown is built from three clumps: a large lit clump, a mid-tone clump and a shadow clump on the side away from the sun. A soft ellipse of cast shadow falls to the right. Distant trees behind are painted two values lighter and with no outline. The reasoning: fewer, larger shapes read as a tree at a distance; many small leaves read as noise.
Traps
Outlining distant trees, painting the sky darker than the ground, a horizon cutting the sheet in half, drawing every leaf, outlining clouds, and leaving no scale reference so the landscape loses its size.