Course Overview:

Welcome To EarthTab Business School. My Name Is Tess Bakker And I Will Be Your Course Preceptor For The Course, Portrait And Landscape Drawing.

This course, "Portrait and Landscape Drawing," is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary program that fuses traditional and contemporary drawing methodologies to train you in the advanced art of portraiture and landscape rendering. It provides a dynamic platform for aspiring artists, illustrators, concept designers, and fine art students to understand the intricate relationship between facial structure, expression, anatomy, natural light, environmental perspective, and compositional storytelling.

Drawing is more than just the accurate representation of forms; it is the language through which emotions, identities, spaces, and ideas are visually communicated. The course is split into two distinct but interwoven disciplines: portrait drawing, focusing on the human figure and its expressive capacity; and landscape drawing, which emphasizes spatial awareness, environmental storytelling, natural realism, and atmospheric perspective.

This advanced curriculum is not limited to theory but is designed with intensive practical exercises, step-by-step projects, analytical breakdowns, critical self-evaluation, and professional critique frameworks. It draws from classical realism, impressionist renderings, and modern digital sketching philosophies while remaining grounded in traditional materials like graphite, charcoal, ink, and mixed media.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you will:

• Acquire deep anatomical knowledge necessary for realistic and expressive portraiture.
  
  

• Understand facial planes, proportions, symmetry, and individuality in faces across age, gender, and ethnicity.
  
  

• Master landscape composition using perspective, focal point theory, light direction, and negative space.
  
  

• Learn how to draw various environments from imagination and observation, including urban, rural, coastal, and mountainous terrains.
  
  

• Cultivate a profound understanding of tonal value, contrast, texture, atmosphere, and depth.
  
  

• Blend the use of light and shadow in both portrait and landscape contexts to achieve mood and realism.
  
  

• Build professional-level drawing portfolios featuring dynamic human expressions and diverse natural scenes.
  
  

• Develop personalized styles while staying technically proficient and observationally accurate.
  
  

• Incorporate advanced rendering techniques such as cross-contour hatching, stippling, smudging, blending, and dynamic line variation.
  
  

Course Structure

The course is divided into 10 to 12 advanced modules, each progressively building upon the last. You will alternate between topics in portrait and landscape drawing to refine both disciplines concurrently, enhancing creative synthesis.

Learning Outcomes

After successful completion, you will be able to:

• Render hyper-realistic or stylized portraits from life and photographs.
  
  

• Convey emotion, character, and likeness using proportion and shading techniques.
  
  

• Construct deep-space landscapes that integrate narrative, weather, flora, and architectural elements.
  
  

• Use compositional strategies to guide viewer attention in both close-up (face) and expansive (scenery) subjects.
  
  

• Build multi-layered drawings combining human subjects with environmental context (e.g., figures in landscapes).
  
  

Tools and Techniques Covered

• Traditional media: graphite, charcoal, conte, colored pencils, pen & ink, soft pastels.
  
  

• Drawing surfaces: textured vs smooth paper, toned paper, sketchbooks, digital tablets.
  
  

• Techniques: blind contour, gesture drawing, blocking-in, structural anatomy, perspective grids, atmospheric fade, tonal gradients, value mapping.
  
  

• Cross-medium adaptation: techniques for transitioning from analog to digital drawing.
  
  

Pedagogical Approach

• Live and recorded demonstrations by professional artists.
  
  

• Anatomical dissection studies and master copies (Da Vinci, Sargent, Turner, etc.)
  
  

• Observation-based exercises using real-life references.
  
  

• Peer review and critique sessions for development of an artistic eye.
  
  

• Portfolio reviews and development strategies for galleries, studios, and schools.
  
  

• Assignment-based progression from foundational sketches to finished compositions.
  
  

Target Audience

This course is ideal for:

• Intermediate to advanced artists seeking specialization.
  
  

• University-level fine art and design students.
  
  

• Professionals in illustration, concept art, and animation looking to improve draftsmanship.
  
  

• Self-taught artists aiming to build technical mastery and portfolio depth.
  
  

• Anyone passionate about figurative art and natural environments.
  
  

Final Assessment & Certification

You will complete a comprehensive final project that includes:

1. A three-quarter view portrait demonstrating accurate anatomical structure and expressive shading.
   
   

2. A complex landscape drawing incorporating perspective, texture, and atmospheric depth.
   
   

3. An optional mixed-subject composition, combining figure and environment.
   
   

Additionally, a 50-question final exam (multiple-choice and short response) will test theoretical understanding of anatomy, perspective, composition, value, and visual storytelling.

Successful you will receive a Certificate of Completion endorsed by the program or art institution.

Professional Application

By mastering both portrait and landscape drawing, you gain vital skills applicable in:

• Fine Art and Gallery Exhibitions
  
  

• Graphic Novel and Comic Book Illustration
  
  

• Character and Environment Design in Gaming and Animation
  
  

• Storyboarding and Concept Art
  
  

• Tattoo and Mural Design
  
  

• Medical and Scientific Illustration
  
  

• Architectural Visualization
  
  

• Educational Content Creation (tutorials, workshops, courses)
  
  

Summary

This course does not merely teach how to draw; it trains the eye to observe, the hand to articulate, and the mind to interpret. Whether drawing the subtle smile of a subject or the sweeping horizon of a rural landscape, the artist will emerge from this program with a heightened sense of visual literacy, technical control, and expressive depth. It is both a studio and a journey from the interior life of the human face to the grandeur of the external world.

I Look Forward To Congratulating You Upon The Completion Of This Course