How to Paint Loose, Expressive Landscapes

Ever struggle with overworking your landscape paintings? 

Palm trees are a good test of your resolve. All those big fronds and tiny leaflets inviting you to draw every line. Just by observing too closely the painting can stiffen up before you know it.

I painted this colorful palm tree on location in Croatia. Standing before that single palm against a big blue sky, I reached for pink, violet and deep crimson. Nothing static, nothing rendered. The color is my response to the moment rather than a record of what was actually there. The energy of the wash and pastel marks is where the movement comes from. Expressive color brings feeling.

So how do we capture that energy and life?

Luckily I snapped a photo of that palm tree, so we can paint it together. We'll look at:

✔️ Bold marks that carry energy
✔️ Color that brings life to the scene
✔️ Suggestion over detail for a painterly result

This painterly approach is a taste of what unfolds in The Painterly Landscape Course. You'll discover the power, fun and freedom of using bold marks and expressive color in your paintings with a complete Painterly Roadmap to guide you. We're also giving the Practice Makes Painterly Bonus to everyone who enrolls in the course before September 9 at 7pm ET when the doors close. This helpful guide is packed with 6 exercises for loose, fresh painting, including the 100-stroke challenge.

Want to paint loose and free? Now's your chance. Enroll in The Painterly Landscape Course by Wednesday, September 9 at 7pm ET, and take the first step toward bolder, looser paintings in pastel that impact the viewer with energy and expression. Seven Milestones take you on a journey of transformation in your landscape painting from design all the way to a beautiful destination. 

Beyond Green: How Expressive Color Brings Landscape Paintings to Life

Have you ever been overwhelmed by green?

Everything in front of me that morning was green.
Green willow. Green pads. Green reflection running through green water. A summer lotus pond doing what a summer pond does best.

So I painted it violet.

Not because violet is a clever trick, and not because I was trying to be different. I painted it violet because after a few minutes of standing there, I stopped asking myself, “What color is that?” and started asking, “How does this place make me feel?” Two very different questions, and they lead to two entirely different paintings.

Lotus Pond, 12x12" pastel

Here's what I want to encourage you with, and it took me years to trust;

You can let go of description without letting go of design.

Look at the painting and you'll see the pond is still there. The willow sits where the willow belongs. The shoreline runs where it should. The reflection drops straight down beneath the tree and holds the whole square together. The pads get smaller as they travel back. Everything structural is faithful.

What I threw away was the detailed description. The local color. The tidy edges. Every fact about what a lily pad actually looks like when you lean over and stare at one.

All that information, and I used almost none of it.

That's the trade-off, and I’ll take it every time. Most of us think we owe the scene an accurate report. Truth is, we’ve got cameras for that. As artists, what we owe is an honest response.

Monet understood this better than anyone. He painted the same pond hundreds of times, and it was never really about the water. The surface was an excuse. An excuse to chase color, to arrange shapes, to make marks, to wonder. The pond gave him permission to play, and he took it for the rest of his life.

So here's my summons for you this summer.

Go stand in front of something green and refuse to paint it green.

Keep the design. Get the big shapes right. Put the darks where the darks belong. Then let the color be yours. Let it be violet, sienna, burgundy or gold, whatever your heart is longing for. Nobody who sees your painting will hold you to what was actually there. 

They'll only ask whether it feels alive. 

They want to feel what you feel.

And trust me, they will.

Keep painting,
Alain

This is the kind of playful discovery we do together during Landscape Week, coming up August 31- September 4. Three live lessons, three ways to loosen up.