The Color of Light: An Artist's Blog

Man made structures always become a focal point in a landscape; the straight lines naturally draw our eye. I rarely put structures in my landscapes, mainly because I enjoy painting natural scenes that have not be touched by man. But another reason is that if they aren't executed properly they can easily look artificial and overworked. 

The best way I have found to add structures to a landscape is to have them really tucked into the scene, which often means overlapping natural elements with them to create depth and unity. 

I also strive to keep my structures very loose and spontaneous. I will lightly sketch the house (or bridge or whatever it may be) in charcoal. Occasionally I will use a ruler to get a straight line but lately I've been veering away from that. I prefer a more natural painterly look, and a ruler tends to make a structure too rigid. Once I lay down some color, I may layer over it to get the variation of value or hue I'm after, but I try to leave the edges alone. Just as with any object in a scene, nothing can take away the magic like too many hard edges. A few strategically placed hard edges is all that's needed to suggest the structure. Let the viewer figure out the rest.