Discover how artist Scott Christensen masterfully blends accuracy and interpretation to create realistic landscapes that captivate and inspire.
Scott Christensen is leading a Pre-Convention Oil Painting Workshop at the Plein Air Convention & Expo this year! Learn more at PleinAirConvention.com and register now.
Realistic Landscapes: Bringing Nature to Life
By Thomas Connors
While still life or portraiture can be pure exercise, landscape requires a deep connection between artist and subject, a sympathy for the vista, no matter how humble, no matter how not picturesque. And where the nature-driven abstractions of Georgia O’Keeffe (to cite just one artist) can offer a deeply formalist pleasure, for most viewers it is representational landscapes that provide a visceral sense of escape. The best of these are more than mere replication, combining accuracy and interpretation, observation, and expressiveness. As Scott Christensen (b. 1962) notes, “When I started out, I wanted to paint a tree that looked like a tree. I didn’t think in terms of pattern and design. But then I wanted to do more; I wanted to paint aesthetically.”
Scott came to art after his life as an athlete took a turn. Injured while playing football at Chadron State College in Nebraska, he felt directionless. An art class, taken to fulfill a requirement, proved to be more than just that; he eventually earned a degree in art education. Yet teaching proved unsatisfying and Scott set about making himself a professional painter: “I painted all kinds of things — horses, cows, wildlife — and then I got excited about just painting light.”
Scott’s creative development was built on his serious study of a range of painters, from the Barbizon-inspired British artist Alfred East (1844–1913) to the American Edgar Payne (1883–1947), whose imagery includes the Canyon de Chelly in Arizona and California’s High Sierra. Still another hero is the Swedish master Anders Zorn (1860–1920), whose oeuvre encompasses landscapes in watercolors and oils.
“I have learned so many things from many different artists,” says Scott. “Design and composition from the Czech painter and illustrator Alphonse Mucha, soft and hard edges from John Singer Sargent, opening up the shadows from Zorn.” And the lessons keep coming. “Many painters in history bounced all around trying to understand how to paint high key or low,” Scott observes. “Or they didn’t know what harmony was. Our knowledge precedes our execution. That’s key to me. I seek to build my knowledge base so that I have more ways to solve problems.”
Although he always loved being outdoors, it was a while before Scott, who often worked from photographs, took his brushes there. Indeed, Scott gets out there in an SUV kitted out with all of his supplies, or takes a pack horse to the back-country, where he’ll stay for a week or longer working. “I might start with a gouache and do five more, pursuing an idea working with shape and scale. I don’t always know where I’m going. And I don’t call everything plein air, because these are not finished things most of the time. I consider myself a pretty rough painter outside. I’m looking for ideas.”
Whether taking in the landscape not far from his home near Victor, Idaho, or trekking deeper into the country, Scott always balances what he sees with what he wants the viewer to see. Referencing his canvas March Snowpack, the artist notes, “I was driving from Bozeman [Montana] along the Madison River and I looked out and saw a high bank with all these chunks of snow falling off. I edited most of them out so that there’s a steep grade. So the bottom half of the painting is completely made up. It’s all about taking something and making it more interesting, if you can.”
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Remember: Scott Christensen is leading a Pre-Convention Oil Painting Workshop at the Plein Air Convention & Expo this year! See his realistic landscapes in person and learn from this master artist in the same room. Learn more at PleinAirConvention.com and register now.
View more contemporary landscape paintings here at RealismToday.com
