Abstracting Landscapes

& having fun in sketchbooks

Hello!

My latest youtube video ‘Painting Expressive Abstract Landscapes | Sketchbook Experiments & Tips’ is out now!

In this blog post I’ve distilled the key takeaways from the video as bite sized notes

If you’d like to watch the video, you can find it here:

How I paint semi-abstract landscapes & have fun in the process

1. Qualities

When I’m looking to partially abstract the landscape, I’m always thinking about simplifying, reducing, and focusing on the one most important element, message or feeling in the work. To help guide my selection process, I sometimes look for the most important visual reference in the landscape. What do I remember or am drawn to? This might be light, silhouettes, man made objects in natural landscapes, the way water moves… Whatever comes to mind, make this quality the focus and forget everything else you can see or remember.

In the video above, the quality I focused on is the way the land and water interconnect and overlap - often times you can’t quite tell what is where, and I love that hazy, almost ethereal quality this overlapping creates.

2. Materials

You can select materials that literally echo qualities of your landscape - could runny or fluid materials like ink or watercolour express water, or harder, drier or thick materials like gouache, soft pastel or pencil reference rock, earth or wood?

I was exploring water, and in this video played with splattering ink the same way the water in the loch I was capturing might splash.

Take a moment to think about the elements in your landscape, what qualities they have, and what it might be like to play with matching materials to those qualities in nature.

3. Mixed Media

A short and sweet prompt, but so helpful in any painting process when practiced: Limit the materials you have, and be conscious about the combinations you pick. Deliberately choosing 3/4 materials to combine and play with can really help your understanding of how they all work together, without getting overwhelmed by the limitless possibilities of experimenting!

To take away, what creative rules could you use next or set for yourself, to explore and guide your semi-abstract paintings or sketchbook sessions? Outlining a few like the ones I have listed above; qualities of landscape, qualities of materials, and limiting mixed media choices can really help to break down the painting process - and actually unlock a whole host of experiments and creativity far easier than an unlimited list of options can.

If you’d like to explore semi-abstracted landscapes, we are running x2 workshops exploring this subject in April 2025 online via zoom, for our Outdoor Sketchbook Collective ‘Studio Play’ tier members. It’d be lovely to see you there!

Orla