How can I improve on skills when it comes to drawing landscapes, seascapes etc.

Trill_Clinton

Hiya , I am an art student working towards hopefully becoming a concept artist one day. when it comes to general drawing and perspective I feel very comfortable when it comes to drawing figures and isolated objects and props such as vehicles and props etc. My main weakness has always been drawing environments and landscapes. After having a review on my course today I recently now feel like I must learn to tackle this area of weakness so I have come here today to ask for any sort of advice when it comes to drawing environments and scenes. Any sort of exercise or resource that could be recommended will be very very welcomed and appreciated.I find when I attempt to draw environments especially from imagination i tend to find I draw in a perspective grid either 1 or 2 point and then all of a sudden my mind goes blank and I struggle to read the grid I have layed in. I cant tell if this is from having a lack of a visual library of environments/ landscapes to draw from and if so how would i tackle this problem. Attached to this thread I am attaching a few environment thumbnails I have produced recently just to gauge my sort of skill right now when it comes to drawing environments.

lotet

your thumbnails are pretty good, I dont see any major issues tbh. If you feel like you struggle its probably in the stages ahead.

Trill_Clinton

What would these stages ahead consist of because i honestly get to this stage and I don't know how to take them even further. Thank you for replying btw I always see your name on these forums and I really appreciate your involvement here  

lotet

oh now you make me feel all special :P  

well your sketches are just that, sketches. 
My point is your thumbnails look fine, we would need to see a more finished piece before proper critique can be made.

Trill_Clinton

ahh ok right give me sometime and i will attempt to sharpen up one of my sketches into something more finished

Trill_Clinton

So I attempted these two images from imagination and eventually I just find that I hit a large wall when trying to come up with elements the fill a scene let alone make a scene in general. Is there any sort of excercise or thing I could do to try and strengthen this weakness

lotet

look up references and I think you should be fine. The tanks in the first scene could be way more defined for example.

LoganFeliciano

Hi Trill, it's great that you're tackling this head on, keep it up man. As someone who didn't start out painting environments and now loves painting them I can relate. Your sketches look fine for getting a general sense of the space and what's going on in the frame. Aside from doing paintings of your own ideas, do studies of environments from photos. Pertaining to your perspective grid artist block, my best advice at the moment would be to start your sketches without the grid and then introducing the grid to check your perspective and fix any glaring issues. I used to have that problem as well, it felt like the grid made my paintings very rigid and adhered to the grid more so than the idea I had in my head. This problem will be fixed with mileage. The more comfortable you are with painting environments, the less issues you will have when you use a grid. Try also starting out your sketches in grayscale, focusing more on shapes and light and dark.

Grab reference to help you understand your scene as best as you can. (textures, color schemes, materials, vehicles, architecture, even things that can act as inspiration that don't directly correlate to the subject matter etc.) You can never have too much reference. Also the more you know what you plan to put in your scene the easier it will be to paint, and you struggle less thinking, what's this blob/scribble going to be?

Sorry for the long winded comment but I hope this helps.

Trill_Clinton

Hiya, thank you so much for the response. Your story about not enjoying environments but becoming a fan of them is really inspiring. I hope in time something similar may happen to me. Thank you all for the response. In terms of photo reference for environments you wouldn't happen to know of any dedicated sites to go to get decent environment reference