16. Composition in Landscape - 15 Tips

Landscapes can be a wonderful, forgiving subject to paint, not only because they can be so beautiful. They also give you a great deal of freedom to change and interpret what you see, and the picture will still look and feel "right." Trees and hills come in all shapes and sizes, so no one's going to look at your painting and say, "Hey, I know that tree, it's actually a little bit taller and those two branches should be farther apart." No one's going to say, "That hill doesn't feel right, it should be steeper." And, no one's going to say, "Hey, I remember that tree, that shade of green is really too bluish and too dark." With natural landscapes, you can relax a little, and focus on painting what you want, not necessarily how it really looks.

Having said that, there are certain concepts to be aware of and mistakes to avoid. I will start with some basics, and tie in some great lessons I've learned from painters Stapleton Kearns and James Gurney, two artists who are far greater than I.

1. Let There Be Light, For It Is Good

Take a look at this painting, by Swedish painter Nikolai Astrup:

Kari paa Sunde, by Nikolai Astrup, 1918

Nikolai painted in a modernist tradition, somewhere between post-impressionism, expressionism, and Edvard Munch's brand of symbolism. Details didn't matter much to him, perspective didn't matter, The location of the sun and the direction of its light didn't matter. Value relationships didn't matter - it's value neutral. Nikolai wanted only to compose pleasing shapes in a simple, relaxed manner, with some vague reference to the colors he saw, and to capture the charm of his rural Sweden. And it is charming, to a degree. Stapleton Kearns says, "Charm is the one quality that will redeem a painting bearing any other fault."

I may ruffle some feathers, but I would posit this painting is faulty. There is some indication of sunlight hitting the mountain from the right, with shadows on the left. But that same light would also fall on the valley below, and it doesn't - Nikolai just ignored that. 

To ignore the light in your landscape is to ignore your landscape altogether. 

The result isn't so much a landscape as a memory of one, like a quick little cartoon, scribbled in paint. Now, without adding any detail, focusing only on light and shadow, I doctored this painting in Photoshop. 

What do you think? Better? Does it have greater clarity? Does it feel more lively?

I'm not saying all landscapes need a bright sunny day. Far from it, you can paint beautiful, dramatic, and powerful landscapes in all kinds of weather: grey, overcast days:

A Meeting on the Bridge, by Emil Claus

rainy days:

Rainy Day, by Paul Gustav Fischer

Storms:

The Storm, by Eugene Isabey

 Fog:

Backyard Fog, by Marc Hanson

At night:

Westminster Bridge by Moonlight, by John Grimshaw, 1880

But, you have to actually look and capture those dramatic weather effects that you see, and most importantly, you have to observe the light. If you do, you'll notice the sky is always lighter than the ground. Here's another value neutral artwork. See how the ground is as light as the sky?

Pod Krivanom, by Rudolf Dollinger

The whole painting feels white-washed. Just darkening up the ground really brings it to life:

Here's another beginner mistake, this time perpetrated by Bob Ross:

Look at the light on the mountain, versus the light on the tree. See how they hit opposite sides? That would require two suns... Come on, Bob, this isn't Tatooine... This is what happens when you spend too much time practicing technique tricks without actually observing anything.

2. Consider Gravity

Everything in nature is affected by gravity. If something, like a tree or a powerline, seems about to fall over, it's odd, and can detract from the beauty of your scene. Stapleton Kearns refers to this mistake as a "down trip", and has provided this example:

See the strange tilt of the trees on the right? Doesn't it look funny? It reminds me of trees up in Canada that fall over when the permafrost melts:

No artist technique that I know of will make this look pretty.

Mr. Kearns suggests fixing it like so, with the tree trunks pointing straight up and down:

As you can see, it's not the hill that's the problem it's the silly notion that every tree should be perpendicular to the ground, even when growing on a hill - that's not what trees do.

An additional beginner problem is to ignore the basic structure of trees. While there is a great variety of tree shape, height, symmetry, some things hold true to all trees - they are thickest at the base of the trunk, and get progressively thinner as you go up. Beginners either don't see this, or don't care. They will paint trees that are ridiculously thick, all the way to the top. Real trees are surprisingly thin for how tall they are - more like straws. And no tree will ever have a branch thicker than the base of its trunk - it would break under its own weight. The simple way to avoid this mistake is to use a smaller brush with a fine point for the branches.

3. Consider Perspective

Buildings, like trees, come in many shapes and sizes - but they primarily have four walls, meeting at right angles. This means, you need to be aware of parallel lines.

The Daye House in Wilton Park, by Rex Whistler, c. 1942

And, when a building is close enough, you need to be aware of converging lines that lead to vanishing points:

Chinese Inn, by Tham Hoi Mun

But perspective isn't limited to artificial things. Nature itself follows all the same rules of linear perspective, it's just not so rigid:

Furrows in the Snow, by Clarence Gagnon, 1924

These plow furrows aren't perfectly straight, but they still converge on a vanishing point. Clouds may converge towards a vanishing point:

Clouds, by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 

Rivers converge on a vanishing point:

Mill and Stream, Morning Sun, by Clarence Gagnon, 

Rays of sunlight are quite straight, and lead perfectly to a vanishing point:

Grand Manan Island, the Bay of Fundy, by Frederick Church, 1852

In landscapes you also need to keep in mind atmospheric perspective - the farther away an object is, the closer it's color will mix with the sky. Look at Church's painting above - see how the cliffs get lighter and more orange in the distance? That's atmospheric perspective.

There are still more ways to suggest perspective and depth. Simple size relationships help suggest near and far:

Shoe by Perugia, Place du Trocadéro, Paris, by Richard Avedon, 1948

The Fog Warning, by Winslow Homer, 1885

4. Consider Your Canvas Shape

A common mistake for beginners is to put any canvas on their easel and just start painting away, without stopping to consider, what do I want to include in this picture? Or Exclude? The most common result is, halfway through, you realize you need to fill in the canvas by adding in all sorts of things you didn't intend, usually things at the bottom of your picture. Mr. Kearns refers to this as "Foreground Follies", and painted this example:

It's a sad reality that, when you go somewhere pretty, especially near water, you often find trash dumped along it. Here we see an oil can, an old sink, and who knows what else. The smart thing would have been to paint the river and boats lower, and include more of the pretty sky above. Another smart idea would be to simply plan ahead, and choose the canvas shape that best presents this view:

This isn't to say you should never focus on the foreground. Sometimes, the foreground is the most beautiful subject to focus on:

In Poppyland, by John Ottis Adams, 1901

The main thing is that you do this intentionally, from the start.

5. Beware of Tangents.

Tangents can flatten your picture, and ruin your sense of perspective. Many beginners try to use the bottom edge of the picture frame as the ground (image courtesy of Mr Kearns). 

Few things could look flatter. Notice the house meets with the canvas edge on the right. Don't do this, give your subjects some "breathing room".

With tangents, there's another danger. When you draw a line, like a road for example, that curves toward the frame and then turns back, the effect is to draw viewers' eyes out of the picture all together. It's like a magnet, pulling your eyes away from the center:

This example is by Stapleton Kearns, but he's not the only one:

Flooding of the Seine, by Maurice De Vlaminck

Emmet's Corner, by Charles Roswell Bacon

This is how Mr. Kearns fixes this tangential exit:

From this angle, the road leads your eye toward the focal point, not away from it (For more on tangents, see this lesson on Shapes).

6. Beware Pareidolia

Pareidolia is a phenomenon unique to humans where we easily see things in random shapes - like clouds that look like rabbits or faces - we especially see faces in many different things:

Pareidolia can be really beautiful, especially when you find it in nature:

Unfortunately, it can be an issue, particularly in landscapes. Mr. Kearns painted this example:

Do you see the hula girl in there? It might sound absurd, but it's actually really easy to discover faces in your artwork, and once you see it, it can be really difficult to unsee it. Here's a watercolor I made in 2010:

See a face? The one yelling at you:

I didn't intend for it, but that one tree yells at me every time I look at this piece. Now, don't get me wrong, pareidolia can be great to play with, if it's on purpose. Salvador Dali made great use of pareidolia:

As you can see, with art, rules are made to be broken - the main thing to understand is, it has to look intentional. Dali used pareidolia on purpose, and we know this because he didn't just break the rule a tiny bit, he broke it thoroughly, all over the place. Not like my watercolor above.

7. Beware of Equal Focal Points

Every picture should have a focal point - something that's interesting to look at. Most pictures have several focal points. But, they need to have a hierarchy. One focal point should be the most interesting, the most important. If you give two focal points the same compositional weight, you get what Mr. Kearns calls "One for each eye":

To fix this, choose which subject you want to be most important, and make sure nothing else competes with it. I talk more about focal points in this lesson on emphasis.

8. Beware of Bisecting Your Landscape

When you divide your composition perfectly down the middle, you fall into the same trap with those two trees above, it's like two different paintings, one for each eye.

The Thames at Westminster, by Anne Brewster, 

Where are you supposed to look? The bridge or Big Ben? The answer is yes... Here's another example:

Acantilado, by Juan Martinez-Abades

What's the subject of this picture? Are we supposed to look at the cliff on the right, or is it actually blocking our view of the water behind it? Also notice the lighthouse at the top touches the frame - a tangent.

9. Beware of Blocking Your Subject

Take a look at this photo:

Is that one tree particularly pretty? What would you rather see, that tree, or the clouds rolling over the sunlit mountain? Does it remind you of when you're trying to take a photo of your friends, but people keep walking in front of your camera? I took this photo with the intention that if I ever painted it, I would remove the tree. Overlapping is nice and provides depth, but you have to be careful not to block the most beautiful parts.

10. Beware of Having No Subject

Some beginners will simply paint what's in front of them with no concept of whether it looks good. Mr. Kearns has developed a great test for this. If your painting is so empty, dull, and boring:

that a burning phonebooth would actually improve it:

Then the composition is a failure. It sounds crazy, but it happens, and the main culprit is often a flat landscape on a bright, sunny day with no clouds:

Great Plains in Colorado

It makes great picnic and soccer weather, but not for painting. When you're a painter, and you live in a place like this, clouds are your friends:

Mending Nets by the Shore, by Hermanus Koekkoek, 1862

Became Silent, by Nikolay Dubovskoy, 1890

Calm Sea, Mentone, by William Stanley Haseltine, c. 1868

Memories, by Marc Hanson

11. Beware of Profile Views

A profile is a side view - of anything. Profiles in portraiture can be exquisite:

Giovanna Tornabuoni, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1489-90

 

But, do you notice how it flattens the subject? She looks a bit like a queen on a playing card, and not just because of her outfit. Landscapes work in just the same way. Take a look at these paintings:

Banks of the Missouri, by Clyde Aspevig

Yerres, Part of the South Façade of Casin, by Gustave Caillebotte, c. 1871-8

Via Sacra in Rome, by Christoffer Eckersberg, c. 1813-16

Interior with a Seated Girl, by Carl Holsoe

Moonlight Bay, by Marc Hanson

Don't they feel flat? Some of these I really like. Holsoe used the profile view well to emphasize the discomfort you might feel being alone in a dark room, full of dark old furniture. His paintings are about stillness and quiet, which you mustn't disturb. You want to tiptoe through them.

 

But, the other painters, who I greatly admire, really should've picked a better view, and Marc Hanson, an excellent artist, apparently just wanted to paint that sky, and everything in the foreground was an afterthought? It can be as simple as walking 50 feet to the right or left, and then turning - just enough of a change so that you see the same subject from an angle. The result is a view that gives you greater depth and sense of place:

Village in Laurentian Mountains, by Clarence Gagnon, 1925

Notice how every building is turned so you see two sides of it? That's not an accident.

12. Beware of Painting Potatoes

This is another lesson from Mr. Kearns. Now, I love potatoes, but they aren't exactly lovely to look at:

A great artist can paint a lovely pictures of a potato, it's possible, I've seen it:

Potato Study, by Michael Vladimir Nicolayeff

But, like with pareidolia, you don't want to do it by accident in your work. And, what I mean is, very often, a beginning painter will see a complex shape, like a rock, a tree, or a cloud, and simplify it to the extent it no longer feels like a rock, tree, or cloud. The resulting blobs more closely resemble, well, a spud.  This is due to a real lack of observation. Nature is full of subtleties an artist must see and capture. Here are Mr. Kearn's examples:

You see how these shapes aren't very pretty? They're non-descript, vague indications of shapes. Compare that with the beauty of real observation:

Bachbett im Böhmerwald, by Edmund Kanoldt, 1867

Notice how the rocks here are more angular. Note the great variety in size. Sure certain parts are rounded, but there are also flat planes and cracks and other details - things that a potato wouldn't have. And, see how the tree trunks and branches in no way resemble a blobby potato? This is real observation. Here's another example:

Bed of a Glacier Torrent, Purtud, by John Singer Sargent, 1904

There are two lessons in this. First, with practice, this problem should generally go away by itself. Second, if you ever paint from life, and you see something that reminds you of a potato, or worse...

Ignore it. Find something nicer to paint.

13. Beware the Big L

This is more of an intermediate painter's problem. I explain in my lesson on emphasis that it's common to place your subject just outside the center of your picture, to free the eyes so they can wander around a bit. That's fine, but then you have to have other areas of interest. If there's nothing else to see but your contrived 'L' then there's no reason to let your eye wander, and you instead have a bad painting.

There are many examples of artists painting L's, some successfully, and others not. It's become quite a cliché in landscape painting:

Blodget Peak, by William Bancroft

Tropical Sunset, by Elizabeth Jerome

The Catskills from the South Side of Mount Merino, by Henry Ary

Palms at Sundown, by Franklin Briscoe

Do you agree that these paintings feel artificial? Contrived? Does the placement of these trees feel thoughtless?

14. Beware of Stripes

This is an issue around rivers, ponds, lakes, and harbors. Mr. Kearns refers to these paintings as "three stripers". You have water and sky with a strip of land in between. And what's wrong with that? Well, it's not so descriptive, is it? If I asked you what body of water that is above, what would you say? Can you recognize it? Is there any way to tell it's a river verses a lake? No, and it's so featureless, it's boring.

There are ways to fix this. I recommend a longer, wider canvas, to start. 

The Wave, by Thomas Alexander Harrison

And then, look for any variation to break up the monotony - introduce a little zigzag design into the scene:

Old Newburyport, Massachusetts, by Alfred Bricher, c. 1873

Twilight Flight, by Del-Bourree Bach

"Sunset at Gloucester" by Winslow Homer, 1880

Each of these examples shows the land getting smaller, as it goes off into the distance. This helps add depth.

15. Beware of Beaks

Notice how Mr. Kearns painted the coastland above? Does it remind you a bit of the beak of a bird?

Little Blue & Green Herons at Cullinan Park, by Linda Murdock

 

This is another example of pareidolia ruining an artwork, and it's specific to coastal scenes. Mr. Kearns suggests minimizing the look and feel of this as much as possible. This is how he fixed his:

These are basic pitfalls to watch out for, there are doubtless many others. But this lesson should get you well on your way to seeing and avoiding them on your own. Good luck!