LinkedIn Learning: Sketching the Landscape

3h 2m * Intermediate * Course

For me this course really pulled everything I’d learnt so far - on the ‘Improve your Drawing Skills’ Learning Path - together. The focus of this course was about learning to capture the essence of a scene or a specific detail that interested me. It revolved around combining drawing theory and on location practice, as well as building confidence in free hand life sketching.

During my time at college I studied hyper-realism, I mostly worked with enlarged subjects since my drawings needed to be detailed, one A3 drawing could take me weeks sometimes months to complete. I also was in the practice of using the grid technique to focus on the miniscule details in each square and ensure a realistic rendering of my subject. This meant that I placed a lot of time and energy to detail an area not focusing on the overall shape and form. After recent reflection I suspect this is where I began to lose confidence in my loose freer drawings.

Since knowing the outcomes from this course were intended to communicate the essence of a subject instead of a hyper-realistic drawing, I have been able to relieve my conscience from the unrealistic expectations of what a sketch or drawing should look like. This has really helped me in furthering my sketching skills and building my confidence.

As a side note, I’ve started to consider ‘style’ in recent weeks, and where exactly I might find mine. After completing the Short Film Project I have built up a consistency in my drawings that resonated with me. I have decided to explore this further through my current work. I began this course sketching the shape and form of what I was seeing onto the paper. As I progressed I decided to have more fun by experimenting with the drawings and creating more stylised versions of the world in front of me. I found these drawings really useful, and I can now see how I can take inspiration from real life interactions and subjects to create something new.