How do you handle transparency and reflection while painting water? How can you suggest moving water or a waterfall with pencil, pen, or watercolor? Read More
Category: Drawing Landscapes
Tips, tricks, and techniques to help you draw landscapes.
Drawing Deciduous Trees (video)
Learn how to draw deciduous trees with or without their leaves. How do you suggest those tiny little branches after the leaves fall? How do you connect branches to trunks? How do you suggest masses of leaves and convey leaf texture with a few quick strokes? Read More
Marin County Journaling (video)
Join John Muir Laws at a benefit for the Nicasio Valley Volunteer Fire Department as he explores ways of documenting your observations and discoveries in a nature journal. Read More
Journaling in the High Sierra (video)
Join John Muir Laws in a presentation for the Sierra Nevada Conservancy as he explores ways of documenting your observations and discoveries, as you hike and explore in the Sierra Nevada, in a nature journal. The video includes a demonstration of drawing a bird and a high mountain landscape. Read More
Journaling Ecosystems (video)
Learn how to describe ecosystems in your nature journal using cross-sections, landscape thumbnails, maps, and block diagrams. Read More
Let’s draw Oak Trees!
Let’s draw oak trees from the close, middle distance, and far! When we are close to the tree we sculpt a few branches and leaves, showing bark texture and some of the smaller twigs. From the middle distance, the objective is to show the masses of the leaves with a hint of leaf detail. On Read More
How to Draw Water with Ballpoint Pen (video)
Have you struggled to draw water with pencils or pens? In this workshop, we will explore waves, ponds, rivers, reflections, beaches, waterfalls, and open ocean using your handy BIC pen. The pen techniques can easily be adapted to pencil if you prefer that medium. If you are enjoying my video workshops, consider making a small donation to Read More
How to paint a sunrise landscape with a waterbrush.
I love painting with waterbrushes. They are now the only brushes I use, even in the studio. They easily create graded washes (an application of paint that transitions from more intense pigment to a pale tint) which I find everywhere in nature. As you paint, the pigment in the brush gets used up but the Read More
How to paint clouds with a flat waterbrush
Flat brushes are incredible tools for creating the random edges of clouds. By twisting the brush between your fingers and rocking it to paint with edges or corners you build beautiful chaotic patterns. If you try to create these kinds of edges with a regular brush, you may easily fall into a pattern of regular Read More
How to draw a Forest (video)
Learn how to draw distant evergreen forests and the view from within the woods. Here we explore layering values (from light to dark) and intentionally controlling the values and detail of each layer. Read More