One of the greatest challenges that we all face when we sit down to create a realistic landscape on canvas, is that often our memory of objects and the colours that we associate with them, oversimplify what is actually really complex and beautiful in the natural world.

What is absolutely essential to learning how to capture realism in a painting, is retraining your mind to look at the natural world around you much differently. You need to really stop and take a moment to deconstruct what you are looking at. Say there is a white cloud up in the sky. Did you know that the colours from the ground are actually reflecting up into that cloud? That the shadows on that cloud are actually softened variations of the colours down below, and that they are not just grey? Or how about the bark on a tree. We all assume it's just brown, right? Now step closer and see the greens, the reds, the whites that are interlaced throughout that brown. Every single thing in the world around you is like that, and once you start training your eyes to take note of it all, then you will find it so much easier to start translating the world around you onto canvas.

The class project this week involves you, your camera, and the great outdoors. That's right, zero painting. I really want each of you to head outside and find something in nature that you can really study for a little while. Then I would love it if you shared your findings so that we can all learn from it and apply it to our own greater understanding of the natural world... this may seem simple and slightly mundane, but I assure you that it is truly the greatest gift you can give yourself as realist painter in training....

Ashley Doss

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