Drawing Scenery: Seascapes and Landscapes

by Jack Hamm

The how-to handbook that exactly explains and illustrates the step-by-step processes for drawing complete, succesful landscapes and seascapes and teaches the fundamentals of good composition as well as the separate picture elements. This guide combines the simplest kind of scenery sketching with the most complex renderings to give every artist, beginner or professional, essential scenery drawing techniques.More than 900 diagrams, pictorial explanations, and pictures

Genres: Art, Drawing, Nonfiction, Nature, Reference, Art Design, Crafts

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Jack B. Hamm was an artist who is recognized both for his Christian-themed artwork and editorial cartoons, and for his books on drawing technique. He both studied and taught at the Frederic Mizen Academy of Art. As a cartoonist and comic strip letterer, he worked on the "Bugs Bunny", "Alley Oop", and "Boots and Her Buddies" comic strips before attending Baylor University to study theology. He taught at Baylor both before and after he graduated in 1948.

Jack Hamm started drawing at 5 years old. Hamm went to Frederick Mizen Academy of Art c. 1936-1941. After finding success in cartoons, he was offered his own creation to which he turned down in order to study ministry at Baylor University from 1945 to 1948.

Hamm hosted an early TV drawing program, The Jack Hamm Show, in Texas and conceived of what became The New Testament from 26 Translations, published by Zondervan. His work drew praise from such diverse folks as "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz, Norman Vincent Peale, and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. By the end of his life, Jack Hamm's artwork could be found in over 25 books.

Reviews

[Void lon iXaarii · Rating 2 out of 5]

I went through the following states reading it: excitement-intrigued-bored-annoyed-bored-slightly interested. I came at it with the excitement of it hopefully helping me improving my environmental concept art. I initially found it's talk of composition and eye guiding interesting, but based on my expectations (which were based on it's summary) I was then disappointed at how long it dragged on with compositions and abstractions. I was expecting practical knowledge and observations about mountains, forests, landscapes, values, insights in these fields, and indeed there were some of them, but unfortunately for me much less than I had expected, and mostly in the second part of the book.

I'm sure this book is valuable to those who've never heard of composition, but having heard a bit about it and being rather against abstract art, and expecting something else for me this book was a bit of a letdown compared to it's major hype. The book probably deserves all the praise that was passed on to me given it's historical influence, I just happened to have discovered it nowadays and apparently (to me) it hasn't aged all that well.

[Jahrit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything in this book is laid very clear. It explains you very principles of drawing scenery, rules that will be always present, no matter the style, no matter, the medium. It is not vague, it is not "oh you draw 3 lines and voila it's done, just try". There's no unnecessary content in this books, it's nicely condensed. My drawing skills improved enormously in 3 months and believe me I tried a lot of things. It did also explain or showed me couple of concepts I did not understand. I can also see how much it will improve my painting skills as well. One of the best time/reward books.

[Nikolina Dancheva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Съдържа полезни съвети за изграждане на композиция при рисуването на пейзажи, както и добри насоки как да се изобразят графично отделните елементи, съдържащи се в един пейзаж (дървета, къщи, камъни и т.н.). Подходяща за начинаещи.

[Robert Waterman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to have this book. I'm glad this reminded me of it and that it is still available.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - fabulous info, but the writing style was academese.

[André · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was with a friend today and looked at his latest professional seascape photos. Looking at the imho better ones, I particularly remembered a composition principle from this drawing book I read in 2016/17:
"The PRINCIPLE OF THE THREES in the arts cannot be overemphasized" (not to be confused with the rule of thirds). Three usually unevenly positioned eye-catchers (or groups of them) in a depth hierarchy/ranking; 3 hills, 3 clouds, 3 trees; a house, a telephone pole in front and a small forest in the background. Simple but good effect.

Maybe I'll go through this drawing book again with photography in mind.

[Jojo Bananas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. Not only good techniques for drawing what you see, but also teaches you how to create mountains, trees, rocks, etc that don't look contrived. And the best part is the simple, but very effective lessons on composition. They are worth the price alone. Hurray for opposable thumbs!!

[Tyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An instructional book on drawing landscapes. It covers alot of the basics of good composition and gives nice tips on how to draw different objects with a regular pencil and paper.

Good for both experienced artists and students.

[Malia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat different, but may get some perspective you haven't seen before

[Huda m · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book! Just beautiful, and it helped me a lot in my Drawing II course

[Elentarri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful!

[Houssam Moughrabi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Complete guide for artist to start learning about Landscape . ..containing a helpful review of basic forms rendering . ..

[keereads · Rating 4 out of 5]

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