Landscapes Curriculum 1

• Often it’s easy with landscapes to look at color literally: the sky is blue, the grass is green.
• You really do have to take the initiative to search for more unusual colors in the landscape.
• Sometimes the landscape itself is a strange color, like the oranges and red tones at Bryce Canyon.
• In Sunday newspaper comic strips, cartoonists were given specific colors they had to use due to the way newspapers were printed.
• In linear perspective, the horizon line is the eye level, where the ocean meets the sky.
• The horizon line in a landscape provides a structure and a stable ground.
• Sometimes the horizon line is more implied in the landscape and not clearly defined.
• Consider the weight of various parts of the landscape: the weight of a mountain, vs. something light like a willow tree’s leaves.
• Even in a more abstract landscape, weight still plays an important role.

• Lighting can truly make or break a landscape, it establishes a mood for the scene.
• Artificial light and natural light are very different from each other, it’s really worth it to learn the fundamentals of how light works.
• Lighting plays a huge role in how movies are designed and produced, there are lighting crews for every movie.
• Texture is often a big part of how the art media in the landscape is handled.
• Atmospheric perspective is where the objects in the foreground are more detailed, high in contrast.
• As objects in atmospheric perspective recede back into the space, they become blurrier and lower in contrast.
• Repeating objects throughout the landscape, at different scales is an easy way to show depth.
• Small figures in the background with large figures in the foreground show depth through the variety of scale.

Artists Mentioned

• Yuyi Morales
• Alexis Rockman
• Edgar Alwin Payne
• Hiroshi Sugimoto
• Eyvind Earle
• Thomas Sgouros
• Kay Nielsen
• Hilary Brace
• J.M.W. Turner
• George Inness
• Yves Tanguy
• Huáng Bīnhóng
• Caspar David Friedrich
• E.H. Shepard
• John Martin
• Norman Ackroyd
• Pieter Bruegel the Elder
• Kahn & Selesnick
• Grandma Moses
• Tang Yin
• Peter Doig
• Oskar Kokoschka
• Mohamed Abla

Books mentioned

• Calvin & Hobbes, Bill Watterson
• This One Summer, Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki
• Blueberries for Sal, Robert McCloskey

Films & TV shows mentioned

• The Fountain
• Downton Abbey

Full Curriculum

Overview · Landscapes 1 · Landscapes 2