In my first lecture I'll give an introduction and class overview including materials, process and procedures. From there, we will find solutions to the greatest challenge of landscape painting: managing the vast complexities and millions of details that exist everywhere we look. We'll focus on finding a clear simple statement within the complexities of our landscape.

When we see a landscape, our first read is based on its overall value structure (the term value refers to the scale from light to dark). In this lesson I'll show you how to use the simple statement of light and shadow as a foundation for the nuances of color, texture and detail. We'll also study more nuanced value structure for subtlety of mood and atmosphere in our work.

As we introduce color into our paintings, we'll limit our palette to just six pigments: titanium white gouache, yellow ochre, venetian red, ultramarine blue, permanent sap green, and van dyke brown. This will have the benefits of making color mixing manageable while having enough range to paint most of what we see.

From landscapes of high drama to scenes of calm tranquility, each of our pictures must be designed to capture the inspirational quality of each place we paint. In lesson 4 we'll explore ways of capturing the visual interest and primary areas of importance in our pictures.

For lesson five I'll demonstrate the importance of edges to give a special emphasis to the design of our landscapes and to create the subtleties and softness of nature.

Color design is potentially complex and confusing but there are simple principles that can make color manageable for you. In this lecture, I'll show you concepts for organizing the complexities of color to recreate the harmonies found in nature as well as a sense of mood and environment in your work. I'll demonstrate how to use and mix a full color palette to represent the color subtleties we see.

Sketching the landscape often requires that we create the illusion of hundreds of miles of space within the confines of a small two dimensional study. This requires us to emphasize and even exaggerate visual cues that suggest depth. In this lesson will take a look at simple but effective graphic devices to create three dimensional depth in our two dimensional studies.

For this lesson I'll demonstrate finding the compositional framing that best conveys the character and mood of the landscape. We'll take a careful look at positioning the horizon line in the picture plane according to the demands of our subject.

Landscape sketching requires a firm commitment but also great enthusiasm and fun. My final lecture and demonstrations will combine principles from all the previous lessons as I show you how to make the complexities of landscape sketching cease to be a frustration and turn into a great joy.