Landscape Drawing Tutorial — Part Three — “Scenery takes shape”

We have some clouds, let’s add another house to the scenery.
Let´s keep it simple and make another structure facing us only from the other side of our view.

So, to begin once again, we imagine another vanishing point on the horizon and pull some imaginary lines.
Remember, the angle of those lines starting from the center of the vanishing point determines the illusion of where the viewer is observing the landscape.

In this case, we give them more or less the same angle we used to create the original house. Otherwise, we risk building a new one with the wrong perspective.

There are ways to avoid those common errors, but for beginners, let´s stick with the simple version for now.

Now we are building another house. Once again, starting from the basic facade shape, we extract new lines and create faces that give depth to the house.

As you can see, the faces follow the same angle as the grid lines. Parallel to the roof shape.

Notice that you can only see one side of the roof in both houses. That is what you would see in real life if the houses were located as they are in the drawing related to the observer.

That view, as you can guess, is determined by these grid lines. The same thing is all around you in real life, but you never think about it as you look at things.

You see that something is up or down, but you never consider why you perceive it like that.

One of the most significant errors that people make when trying to render a landscape such as this is trying to show both sides of the roof. This is mainly because they know those roof-sides exist, so most people feel they have to show them. Otherwise, the viewer would think there was something wrong with the drawing — a big mistake.

You should only render what the viewer would see in reality, and never what you know it´s there behind something.
You would need a view that it would be impossible for you to render correctly simply because you have to follow the grids generated by the vanishing points.

We now have added a little tree to the scenery. As you can see, it doesn´t have much volume, and because of that, in this example, it can be placed anywhere as long you respect its size relative to the distance.
Smaller when far away — Bigger when close to the viewer.

It´s time to give the scenery some accurate scale, and that is why the tree is now here.
As for the original little house, it´s now back to show that you can make a horizon look as far as you want just by adjusting the size of an element you place at that horizon level.

Now that the little house is back, suddenly, the landscape does not look as wide as it seemed without it, does it?
If that original little house were even more prominent, your ground area would look even smaller.

So, first essential tip: — the vastness of a landscape can be increased or diminished by the size of the objects you place on the horizon. The further that object goes away from its accurate scale, the more your landscape will feel. The closer it comes to its actual size, the smaller and more unrealistic your scenery will look, particularly if you already have some well-placed elements, as we now have with the two houses and the tree almost in the foreground.

Next — Part 4 “Planes & Viewpoints“

Before — Part 2 “Going 3D”