Art Handbooks: Drawing Landscapes

Ronald Swanwick's aim is to inspire the artist to go out and use a pencil at least as often as a brush. He shares his approach to drawing landscapes - teaching how to observe and soak up the atmosphere of a landscape, and opens the book with sections on composition, perspective and making marks and tones. Also, he clearly explains his language of drawing - in which there are only four methods of making marks - dots, lines, squiggles and washes. The mark you make and the tonal value you ascribe to it are used to describe the texture of a surface. Putting together these marks and tones allows you to build up a drawing to look like anything you wish.

Drawing Landscapes has further sections on dealing with sunshine and shadows, drawing from photographs, drawing skies, trees and water and how to incorporate people and animals into a scene. Having accomplished these techniques you can practise by doing one of two step-by-step projects - a derelict farm building in pencil or a delicate snowscene in chalk and charcoal. A number of Ronald's finished drawings are included throughout the book for inspiration.