5 Beginner-Friendly Landscapes to Draw

Landscape drawing is a fundamental skill for all artists. Professionally trained artists know that being able to draw a realistic and balanced landscape is the foundation for creating quality art work across hundreds of genres. 

You might specialize in character drawing and want to learn how to build worlds around the characters you create. Learning how to sketch a beautiful landscape can help add new background elements to your current pieces and help beginners master general drawing techniques like perspective drawing, art composition and mimicking natural forms. 

This curated list of diverse landscapes can help artists of all skill levels practice their drawing skills all while achieving a realistic and compelling final drawing. To create your first pencil sketch, you’ll need a sketchbook and a pencil. As you advance, colored pencils, watercolors and textured paper can add even more beauty to your work.

1. Drawing Mountain Landscapes

Landscape idea: Draw a rugged mountain landscape peaking out above a misty forest. Focus on shading techniques to capture any rocky textures and shadowed lighting. Adjusting pressure on your graphite pencils can help create realistic mist and clouds. 

Drawing Tips: 

• Start with a light sketch of your mountains and forest so you can adjust your main outline as needed. Pay attention to perspective and composition to establish a strong foundation for your realistic landscape. 
• To mimic the rocky texture of the mountain, use short, jagged lines in varying directions. You can also add a few longer lines to resemble larger rocks and peaks. 
• Once you determine the direction of your light source, you should shade your mountains accordingly. You can use hatching, or parallel strokes, and cross-hatching, or intersecting strokes, to build up shadows in your pencil drawing. 
• Play with soft, circular strokes to create the misty effect within your forest. With graphite drawing, try drawing with the side of your pencil. 
• Use a blending stump, an eraser or a tissue to give your mist softer edges.
• Sketch your trees in the foreground, midground and background and then add details once you’re happy with their positioning. 
• Add highlights to your piece by using a white pencil or eraser to mimic where the light is shining the strongest. 

2. Drawing Seascapes and Beach Scenes

Landscape Idea: Seascapes can range from a calm seaside morning to a stormy beach scene. You can add in native coastal plants or sea creatures or just mimic the simple movement of the waves. Start by focusing on a minimalist scene of a few dunes and beach grass with water in the background. 

Drawing Tips: 

• Use reference images to try to imitate water reflections and movements within your seascape. Soft, horizontal strokes can help show the natural movement of the water surface. 
• Try using a watercolor set and pastel pencils so you can add a range of colors to your ocean scene. Use a color wheel if you’re looking for complementary colors.  
• Use hatching, or parallel strokes, and cross-hatching, or intersecting strokes, to darken your piece and indicate deeper water and shadows. 
• Once you determine the direction of your light source, emphasize any ripples in the water by creating highlights using an eraser or white pencil. 
• For calm water, try using a blending tool like an eraser, blending stump or tissue to create fluid movement. 

3. Drawing Forests and Natural Landscapes

Landscape Idea: Drawing dense forests can be a top-notch way to master a wide range of forest drawing techniques. By focusing on how to draw a few different types of trees, underbrush and even a few forest animals, you’ll finish with a realistic thick woodland scene. 

Drawing Tips: 

• When starting your light sketch, consider the focal point, perspective, and areas of interest, such as a forest animal or a cluster of trees. Deciding whether to use a one-point perspective or a two-point perspective from the start can ensure a high-quality final natural landscape. 
• Since you’re trying to create a dense forest scene, think of your final composition in layers. Plan to draw trees in your foreground, midground and background to maintain balance in your piece.
• Lush woodlands are filled with a lot of different trees. Look up a few reference photos before you get started and choose a few tree types to add to your own forest.
• To create the texture of bark, use a variation of thick and thin lines. For bumpier, extra-textured bark, use irregular, jagged strokes. 
• Consider adding fallen leaves, twigs or small plants to your foreground for more visual interest. Using tools like colored pencils, watercolors or pastels can also make your drawing more realistic. 
• With landscape art, it’s important to add more details, like individual leaves and forest animals, to the foreground. Using smaller, simplified and lighter-toned strokes in the background will create the illusion of distance.

4. Drawing Urban Landscapes

Landscape: City skylines at sunset and street views at midday can both be serious inspiration for urban landscapes. You can scroll through your camera roll for inspiration from your travels or your hometown. 

Drawing Tips: 

• Utilize a two-point perspective when drawing your first sketch. You’ll use these two points to guide the angles of your buildings and streets for a realistic urban landscape.
• For midday street views, focus on bright light and harsh shadows. In the early evening or morning, you can mimic a diffused light by drawing soft shadows and using warm colors like oranges and pinks. 
• Adding small details like windows, brick texture or street signs can help your drawing feel even more full of life. 
• Consider learning a little more about architectural drawing and how you can use the same art techniques as architects to make a first-rate finished piece.  

5. Drawing Desert Landscapes

Idea Description: With its stark beauty and simplicity, desert landscapes can be an excellent starting place for beginning artists. You can focus on vast open spaces and sand dunes or add in geometric pyramids and a couple of camels.  

Drawing Tips: 

• When it comes to a simple landscape, focus on using negative space to convey openness. In the above picture, the artist uses a huge sky to make the pyramids and the camel seem like delicate additions to the piece. 
• If you’re going for a sunset or sunrise desert landscape, use color blending to create contrast between the golden sands and the orange and yellow-tinted sky. 
• For a realistic landscape, make sure to determine your perspective, light source and position of your foreground and background elements before you begin to draw.
• In any minimalist composition, it’s important to bring your scene to life through the little details. Creating texture by dotting your pencil to show grains of sand or adding a light blue oasis in the distance can keep your scene simple but lifelike. 

Develop Your Skills in Digital Art with Skillshare

Drawing varied landscapes like sunlit cityscapes and misty mountaintops can help develop artistic skills like perspective drawing, color blending and adding shadows and highlights.  

You can use landscape art for your general artistic development or to add life to singular object drawings. To further your landscape drawing skills, consider watching a few drawing tutorials over the next week or investing in some drawing lessons. Just remember to take your time and focus on learning step by step rather than trying to master every drawing skill at once. 

For even more guidance, Skillshare is the go-to platform for creatives of all abilities to practice their drawing skills through online classes and projects created by experienced professional artists. 

Related Reading:

Written By

Calli Zarpas

Producer & Writer by occupation. Ceramicist & Newsletter Editor by avocation.

Share

• 
• 
• 
•