Graphite Landscape Sketches

Graphite Sketch of Pikes Peak, 8x10

Since I can’t paint everyday, why not draw everyday? It really shouldn’t be that hard to find an hour a day to put some graphite to paper. What’s more, every professional artist I have talked to says it will ultimately help my painting. To get started, I picked up some Prismacolor woodless graphite pencils and took a stab at drawing Pike’s Peak…from life. The piece above is of the view from our kitchen table, although I’ll confess that the foreground is entirely invented. We live on rolling mountain prairie surrounded by distant hills and trees with houses peppered in between. Drawing seems much like painting without the 800 pound gorilla called color. I painted this scene a couple of weeks ago and although I liked the overall impression, the colors were way overdone and there was no foreground to give the Peak context or scale. Much like painting, I had to really look for value changes and determine where best to emphasize edges. I was also forced to simplify the subject in much the same way we are taught when we compose a painting. This was a pretty gratifying exercise so I plan to do several of these over time to see how they evolve. Please click for a larger view to see the pencil stroke detail.

Italy's coast south of Cinque Terre

Above and below are a couple more I completed. Above is of the west Italian coast just south of the Cinque Terre and the one below is a view of the coastline in Carlsbad, California. Both are inspiring sights in person!

Coastline in Carlsbad, California

Category: Fine Art and Painting