​See How to Draw A Simple One-Point Perspective Landscape of A Road and Trees With A Sunset  in this Simple Art Tutorial For Beginners.

For this drawing I used a 4B pencil, an eraser, some watercolour paper and some watercolour paint.

Learn how to draw a simple road with trees in one point perspective in this art drawing for beginners. I then show you one way to paint with watercolor, a watercolor sunset with trees and a road.

Step 1:
Draw a horizon

Step 2:
Draw a dot or vanishing point on the horizontal line

Step 3: 
Draw some diagonal lines from this vanishing point, two for the road or path and some more for the base line and tops of the avenue of trees

Step 4: 
Draw a tree trunk that fits within these diagonal lines

Step 5:
Draw more trees, getting smaller and closer together as they approach the vanishing point on the horizon

Step 6:
Draw the branches of the trees, split then with "V" shapes to get smaller branches

Step 7:
Add some detail and shading to the trees

Step 9:
Draw a sunset and some textures

Step 10:
Colour in the picture

Step 11:
For this drawing I used watercolour paper, which is thicker than drawing paper, and watercolour paints in solid pans. I painted areas of the drawing with water first and then added some paint, so the watercolour would spread [wet on wet]. Later I let the paint dry and then painting again [wet on dry]

Thank you for watching this short art tutorial. I hope you find it useful for your own perspective drawing and watercolour landscape painting.

I hope you find this line drawing tutorial useful for your own drawings. 

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​WATCH NEXT: How to Draw Perspective: http://bit.ly/29Mbx27
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There are now over 195 of my How to Draw art videos at: http://www.youtube.com/user/circlelinemedia

This moving optical illusion is called the Ouchi Illusion and is named after its inventor, Japanese artist Hajime Ouchi.
If you move your head or the image horizontally or vertically an affect can be seen of the center circle moving or floating behind the horizontal rectangles that surround it.
The Ouchi illusion works because the pattern uses the way our eyes naturally make random tiny eye movements. Our brain interprets the quick change in direction within the pattern as a movement within the pattern itself!

Next Up: See my How to Draw a Moving Optical Illusion YouTube Video below!

The greatest artistic creations are never quite perfect. For to be great there needs to be a seed of unease, of tension, of destruction.

It is in this balance, or imbalance, between creation and destruction that artistic unity and greatness can be achieved.

In nature there is a continuous play between life, death and rebirth. Change happens as the life cycle rolls on. Art needs to have the possibility of change, destruction and rebirth embedded within its core. It is when art possesses these qualities that it is truly alive.

Sometimes these tensions are hidden within a form of beauty that is clear to see. Many of the formal elements of design, like colour theory, composition and spacial balance, are ways to hold these seeds of tension within a structure that is stable.  

Other times a work of art does not hold the seed of life and lacks the spark of tension necessary to hold the viewers attention. 

To enable the possibility of life in a work of art, the artist should take the risk of walking the line between creation and destruction.  




   

Our minds think visually more often than we are aware. We tend to believe what we see, unless there is information to make us doubt it.

But we should not trust our minds so much, as our own minds can often fool us.

An impossible object is an optical illusion made in two dimensions that would be impossible in three dimensions.

The Penrose Triangle is a drawing of an impossible three dimensional object on a two dimensional surface plane. It is an impossible shape to exist in Euclidean three dimensional space. We want to make the adjacent edges join in a logical way, so a real three dimensional space can be imagined, but it cannot.

Our mind tries to interpret the Penrose Triangle as a three dimensional object in space, rather than interpreting it as a two dimensional object drawn on the paper plane. It is interesting to note that the Impossible Triangle still seems to want to be three dimensional, even after the early visual realisation that it cannot.

The Triangle was first created by the Swedish graphic artist Oscar Reutersvard, in 1934. Oscar Reutersvard used a series of cubes to make the sides of his triangle.

It was then drawn independently by the mathematician and philosopher Roger Penrose in the 1950’s, as an excellent example of an impossible object.

Later the Dutch artist M.C.Escher used the illusion in many of his prints, for example The Waterfall, a lithograph from 1961.

A flash of inspiration is a moment of fleeting creativity that should be caught and built upon. The best way to do this is to act on it there and then. If this is not possible you should write it down or draw it out, instantly, before the moment goes.

A pocket sketchbook is a great way to keep and build on these fleeting moments of inspiration, as a pocket sketchbook is always at your side.

We do not see or know something when we are looking or learning, until we reach a moment of realisation. At this moment it all becomes clear to us and we perhaps wonder why it was so difficult to understand in the first place!

It is satisfying to draw from observation partly because these moments of realisation can be achieved regularly, if focus is achieved. This is because to draw well from observation you need to be honest about what you actually see, rather than just draw what you think is there.

At its best a sketchbook is a diary of visual ideas that can fit in your pocket and stay with you.

Many sketchbooks used nowadays are rather large. This encourages studio creativity, where ideas are brought to the sketchbook, rather than enabling the sketchbook to record the ideas that we come across in life. This has the effect of making art in response to the studio and second hand resources, rather than the observations and inspirations of life.

How do you capture your moments of inspiration?

Drawing can be a very direct link between the inner imagination of the mind and the reality of the world. Designers use drawing as a way to quickly develop their ideas visually so that they can see what they imagine and communicate their imagination to others.

Drawing is a system of representation and for a drawing to be read the system needs to be understood. This is a cultural matter and it is interesting to note that there are many drawing systems which we have to learn. For example Ancient Egyptian paintings, with its constant use of human side profiles.

Many drawings try to represent a reality, to be equal to the thing depicted. But drawing is always just itself, any reality is an illusion.

For a very young child, the ability to draw using a system is not formed, but the child can still read into their drawing of marks and see meaning that is not always communicated in a readable way to the viewer. The emotional content might be very readable. Children soon find symbols to represent ideas that can be read by others.

Drawing is at once a form of action and a form of representation.

It is possible to draw abstract marks to represent how you feel. Visual marks on a page can be read in the same way as we can read the subtle fleeting expression in a face or the slight change of tone in a voice.

I believe the focus on drawing as a form of representation, a way of seeing and understanding the world, is a vital skill. But drawing also has an important role in the development of emotional and conceptual thinking. This is underused and should be encouraged.

Do we as a society focus too much on teaching and valuing representational drawing above emotional and conceptual drawing?

Don’t criticise what you create at first. You should let it grow. If it was worth making, there might just be something in it! This is why it is very useful to keep some of your notes and drawings in a folder. They might be very useful in the future.

We all like to think we will make a dramatic change, but I think we don’t. Over time we find the best way to be is to be our authentic self. To be the best version of yourself is all that is available, and it is plenty!

Give yourself permission to be creative. Give yourself permission to be an artist. Give yourself a commitment of time and then focus on one thing, the flow of creativity...

Let yourself get into a flow of creativity where your ideas become visual ideas that lead to new beginnings.

To enable the flow of ideas you need to…

Let your drawings develop by themselves; don’t think, question or label what you make at first!

Be observant, as if you know nothing and the world is new!

Listen to everyone, be interested rather than interesting!

Be curious about the world, ask questions rather than look for answers!

Be yourself; you have no choice, all the other people are taken!

Find and solve problems, they are everywhere!

Find and make connections!

Be happy to fail; you cannot grow if you are not willing to fail!

If you follow these simple guidelines you will find that your flow of ideas and creativity will blossom over time.

How can you build your creativity today?

The aim of drawing should not always be to create a picture.

Why is that so?

Drawing is a way of thinking, drawing is visual thinking. Visual thinking is one of a number of non-verbal forms of thought, such as musical thought, kinaesthetic thought and mathematical thought.

We all think in a range of ways, including visual. For example when driving, playing chess or catching a ball.

Drawing is about visual thinking, making connections, editing ideas and seeking the truth. 

Here is a list of some of the reasons I think there are to draw:

• recording the appearance of things
• recording the appearance of ideas
• clarifying ideas
• analysing ideas
• generating ideas
• developing ideas
• conceptualising spatial ideas
• developing skills in concentration
• visualizing abstract thoughts
• communicating abstract thoughts
• developing a sense of personal identity
• developing self expression
• expressing feelings
• developing a sense of playful thought
• recording inspiration, before it goes!

One of the best ways to improve your drawing and your visual ideas is to stop thinking and just draw. So don’t think too much, just draw!

What are the reasons for your next drawing? 

Drawing is a wonderful way of seeing the world as it is, of responding to the world and of becoming more self aware of how we fit into the world around us.

Drawing is a simple and direct art medium that is a very powerful way to make a great variety of images.

These images can be beautiful, but I do not think that should be the main aim of drawing. It would be better to show reality, subjective reality, as it is to us.

There is a beauty in reality and this reality is not at all the same as just what things look like, or what the world looks like through the lens of a photograph. We must acknowledge that we are looking through our eyes, We are always subjective onlookers to a world that is only described to us through our senses.

Art is in a unique place to allow us to respond to the world in an intuitive and subjective way. But this intuitive and subjective way needs to be based on a sense of curiosity and wonder.

Children are born to draw, to respond to their world. To continue to learn to draw as we get older we need to keep pushing, to continue to be childlike, creative, inventive and curious.    

In drawing the quality of the first mark is critical to its success.

Your first mark really does matter!

All the skill an artist processes can be shown in that first single mark. The greatest strength an artist has is their strength of self identity. Each mark made by an artist is the artists signature; this is how artists grow to have an individual style.

Sometimes it is difficult to recognise this quality of style in your own work; it is easier to recognise style in others.

The first mark can be confident or tentative, but most importantly it should be honest.

When you study the sketches of the greatest artists, their unfinished first marks are often equal in power to their final compositions.

You need to feel you own the image you create; that it comes from within you, from your core self. Let creativity just happen.

The first mark must react to the purity of the surface it is placed upon. A mark is a reaction, as well as an action.

Children are naturally playful and creative.

As we become more self aware we can sometimes feel a lack of confidence in our own drawings and in our own ability to be creative.

We start to judge our work in relation to our peers and the art that is already out there.

This is a mistake.

Our art is meaningful because we made it. It is honest and it encapsulates our core self.

We have nothing but ourselves to give.

So how will you make your first mark today?     

At its core all great art is simple.

This is because truth is simple. If truth is not simple it is probably not true.

-Max Liebermann 1847-1935
Max Liebermann was a German painter of the Impressionist style

If you make a drawing or painting based on a photograph there is little point in making a copy. A copy of a photograph is not a truth. You already have the true photograph. There is also the truth of the thing that was photographed.

The challenge in art is to edit and interpret what you see, what you think and what you feel.

If you make a drawing or painting from real life, from observation, it is impossible to make a copy of what you see. The visual world is just too complex and layered. The visual world is in three dimensions and you are working with just two. It is full of tones, textures, colours, lights, shadows, forms, lines and meanings.

Furthermore, the reality of what you see is individual to you.

We are faced with an information overload that is constantly accelerating. We intuitively know that our brains can only take in so much visual knowledge.

To be creative we need time to reflect on our own thoughts and observations.

We need time to assimilate the ideas and creations of others. We need to edit. To achieve style you must edit.

The greatest challenge in art is to decide the essence of what you want to say and record. Then you need the discipline to focus on just that. I think this is where individual style comes in. To draw is to think visually.

How can you make more from less?

Drawing is a form of purposeful mark making.

It is natural to draw as a child. Drawing starts with a child's fascination with the mark that can be made, by crayon or stick, and later develops as a way of using symbols to create and express abstract and inner thoughts.

Drawing helps us to reflect on the world around us. Drawing shows ourselves, and the world, that we are here!

Drawing is a visual way of thinking and is a natural reaction to life.

So what goes wrong? Why do so many people stop drawing and suppress their natural creativity?

I think children's drawings are highly creative and wonderful; but there comes a stage when children need to be taught how to draw, so they can continue to express themselves with purposeful mark making.

Children can make a noise on a musical instrument, but they need to be taught, over many years, before they can become competent at playing music well.

But a young child's first drawings are often highly imaginative and sensitive in a way their first musical notes may not be!

Sadly, there is often not an educational structure or platform to help children learn the basic steps to draw well. Drawing can be taught in a structured way. Just as you can learn to play a musical instrument well, you can be taught to draw well. Drawing is a skill to acquire over a period of time. If you would like to learn, you can be taught, whatever your age, it is never too late!

Not everyone will be a great musician, or a great artist, but that is not the point! Art is about self expression, heightened awareness and heightened imagination.

So would you like to learn to draw well?