Three Roads Fun & Easy Tutorial

This is a revised version of one of my previous Fun & Easy Landscape posts.

Instead of step-outs, today I’m showing you some composition tips. The composition is the layout of your work, how it all fits together, no matter what the subject of your landscape.

Hints for an Fun & Easy landscape. Keep it simple. Have contrast – at least 3 values: light, midtone and darks. Have something that ties it together and leads you through the drawing/painting. In this case, a road.

I almost didn’t share this video. I’ve never used gouache before, and struggled with this painting. But I thought, I’m always telling people to judge their work for what is good about it, not what is bad. I should take my own advice so people know that I mean it.

Three Road Compositions

I’ve come up with three kinds of road compositions that will tie a painting together, make it seem whole, and help lead the eye through the drawing/painting. Note that you could also use fences, rivers, walls … anything that creates a ribbon/border through-out a painting.

Winding Roads

Winding Roads gently curve over slopes, emphasizing the height, width and distance of each section.

To increase the feel of the distance, the road is wider at the beginning (the bottom) of each slope and narrows toward the top. The road in each subsequent slope is narrower than the slope before it.

Wrap Around Roads

The Wrap Around Road also winds around but not gently. It twists and curls like a snake, wrapping around various objects. It disappears at times, when it wraps behind something.

If you want to imply distance, the road should be wider at the start (the bottom) and be slightly narrower each time it reappears from behind an object. However, this kind of road is also often used in landscapes where there is no sense of distance or depth. If the road is a lane or foot-worn track, it may widen and narrow at random, as it does here.

Striped Roads

Striped roads can be straight or slightly curved. They carve your drawing into sections, that you fill with trees, flowers, rocks and animals. This is a good roadway to use if you like to create rows of objects.

If you want to imply distance you make each road narrower as you go up the page. Items within each section become smaller to show they are further away. But if you wish, you can ignore distance altogether.

Slight curved and diagonal to one another.