“There are a number of very simple yet amazingly effective ways in which you can create effective landscapes in miniature inside your studio that will enable you to sketch and paint as if you were perched on that cliff. What’s more, if you’d like the view to offer more or less of the valley, you can shift the mountains around a bit. It’s easy, and the materials are probably beside you right now”

Tony Smibert from Chapter 11: Idea Starters, in Painting Landscapes from you Imagination

This has been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding exercises so far, and as Tony writes it was remarkably easy. It began by taking a sheet of white paper and crumpling it to create an imagined mountainous terrain complete with soaring peaks and distant valleys, which became further defined with washes of color.  

Once I was happy with my miniature landscape it became time for some creative fun. First I placed it in front of a landscape I painted for one of the earlier exercises in Tony’s book,
which you may remember in a post entitled imbued with possibilities.

Then I tried it against one of the dark ceramic tiles I often use as a
backdrop to some of my photos in the studio.

Finally, I took the landscape outside as Tony suggests and photographed it against today’s beautiful blue sky, “shifting the mountains around a bit” to create different views.

   

    

    

It’s been a great day as you can see. I very much hope yours has been too.

Worldwatercolormonth Day 21