Prompt
- Use items from the grocery store to observe from life in order to create an alien landscape.
Examples
Ashley Tanelle, Neil Espinosa, Crissie, Wadalafer
Process
- Gathering objects from the grocery store.
- Arranging the objects into a composition and lighting the scene.
- Thumbnail sketches with line, value, and color.
- Final artwork.
Grocery Store Tips
- Search for a wide range of textures: items that are very coarse vs. items that are very smooth, shiny, bumpy, etc.
- Aim for a variety of heights in your objects, so items that are tall and thin vs. items that are more short and flat.
- Tiny plants can be great for creating trees and other foliage.
- Keep in mind that some items will not last long (raspberries) while others will last a while. (butternut squash)
- Don’t worry about how large an item is, you can always change the scale within your artwork. For example, a strawberry can be dramatically enlarged in your artwork.
Lighting
- Consider arranging the items to simulate how you will compose the landscape.
- You can place a light on the items to create a more believable landscape.
- Play around with where you place the light, look for shadow shapes that interest you.
Thumbnail Sketches
We recommend doing about 6 small thumbnail sketches to explore a diverse range of options for your composition. Start your first thumbnail sketches with line and think about how you want to place your subject onto the page.
Ginger Medrano, Ashley Tanelle, Neil Espinosa, Crissie
Inspiration
Fantastic Planet, Yellow Submarine, Avatar
Paint Media
watercolor, gouache, acryl gouache, acrylic, oils, water mixable oils, ink wash, liquid watercolor, alcohol inks
Drawing Media
ballpoint pen/gel pens, dip pen, brush pen markers, Caran d’Ache crayons, graphite powder, colored pencil, soft pastel, oil pastel, pencil, charcoal, ink wash, scratchboard, wet charcoal, oil sticks
DIGITAL SOFTWARE OPTIONS
Procreate, Krita, Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Paint Tool SAI, Adobe Fresco, MediBang Paint, Gimp
Fantasy Landscapes in Procreate
See how you can create a fantasy landscape in Procreate, using a broad range of reference photos. You can dramatically manipulate and transform your reference photos to blend them together into an unusual landscape.
Use of simple strategies like atmospheric perspective, texture, foreground, middle ground, and background to create a convincing landscape. Demo by Teaching Artists Cat Huang and Deepti Menon.
Ballpoint Pen & Watercolor: Imagined Environment
This video shows how to draw an environment from imagination using ballpoint pen and watercolor techniques. Diverse experiences, gathering reference images and objects serve as the inspiration for creating this imaginary environment.
Demo led by Guest Teaching Artist Julie Benbassat and Teaching Artist Cat Huang.
Pen & Ink & Pencil Drawing
Art Prof Clara Lieu and Guest Teaching Artist Song Kang demonstrate Song’s drawing technique to create effects similar to ink wash using pen & ink, pencil, and matt medium. Song creates a lively, imaginative composition based on textures and forms in nature.
