TUTORIAL // environments

hey mario! of course you can include it! you can even sell it if you like! the exhibition sounds like a lovely idea.

Loish

Hi Loish, Thank you so much for the tutorial! I know the tutorial is a bit older, but I have a question about it. I followed the tutorial and used your photo as a reference. In the end, I added some personal touches that differ from your original image (e.g., I included a walker instead of a jogger and made a few other changes). I was so happy with the result that I had it printed and framed. Soon, some friends and I are hosting a small art exhibition in our little town of 22,000 people, and I would love to include the piece I created based on your tutorial. The artwork won’t be for sale, but I’d feel much better if I had your permission to display it. After all, the photo and the initial concept are yours. I’d greatly appreciate your response!

Mario Kleine

hey katie! yes, I try to get my reference pictures from sources that allow use of the images in that way. I get a lot of them from unsplash currently! I also sometimes use my own photos. sometimes I'll reference something that isn't royalty free but I'll try to transform it from the original.

Loish

Hey Loish question about reference photos- where do you draw the line between using something as a reference photo and copying. And do you make sure that all your reference photos are royalty free to avoid any future issues?

Katie Jackson

hey! it sounds like you need to turn on the setting "foreground to transparent" for the color. this way, it doesn't use the background color as your second gradient color! let me know if this works!

Loish

Hi Loish! Thank you for the tutorial! I had fun following along. One thing that I struggled with was the gradient tool. For my default gradient tool in photoshop, I set it as it looks in your tutorial, lower the opacity. However, they gradient color always expands too much when I worked with the sky. The yellow gradient took up the blue sky with just 2 strokes. If you don’t mind, could you please let me know how you set the settings for the gradient tool?

An Nguyen

happy to hear that! for me it really helps to just see it all as part of a process. i'm forever frustrated with my ability to draw environments but there's growth happening!

Loish

Hey Loish, thank you for this tutorial! I've been so intimidated by landscapes for such a long time, so your advice of focusing on overall skill improvements and not individual pieces was a great mindset shift for me. I'll give it a try this week and see what happens!

Clarissa

It's good that you're weighing the choice to heavily detail something against the more important elements of the painting (the sunset)! In my case I would just keep them super rough and basic, and think about detailing them at the very end when the rest of the painting has been worked out. then you can assess for yourself how necessary that degree of detail is for the impact of the final piece!

Loish

thank you so so much for this! I was particularly struggling with getting lost in the details and trying to create really complex texture right off the bat...but I can see that you definitely don't do that and let the elements, composition, shape, and color speak for itself. I particularly was struggling with painting a beach littered with footprints. I started with trying to paint in the footprints but it became a tedious process and distracting to the central element-- a sunset / couple on the beach. What do you think? should I try to replicate the footprints with some rounded shapes or bypass them entirely? the footprints are irrelevant to the overall painting, but theyre very much present in the reference photo.

wavylinesem

Thank you so much for this tutorial! It's a great starting point for me of venturing into the wonderful world of environments 😅

Vanessa Kaliwo

I feel the same way!

Vanessa Kaliwo

glad you found it helpful!

Loish

I love this video because you showed me a few ways to work that I never considered. Thank you Loish.

Enzo

good luck! you will improve with practice :)

Loish

Ive been really nervous to start trying to learn how to draw environments, but this tutorial is an awesome starting point and I’m so excited to try it out!

I’m really excited to practice this lesson this weekend. I always forget about the lasso tool except when I need to move something around.

I usually just find the texture online and then right click + copy it! then paste it onto my drawing!

Loish

How do you copy textures from pictures?

Carolina Valdes

I was about to ask the same question! That would be so helpful! :)

Cozy Cat (Andrea)

YES! I've been waiting for an environment tutorial since I first discovered your patreon. Thank you so much!!

Ivan Lam

I'll go with what Mona said! Tnx voor this insight!

Steven Bouwens

hey denis! thank you so much for the support, I'm happy to hear you're happy with the content :)

Loish

Hey Loish, firstable i follow you for many years on instagram and I have your two 3Dtotal publishing artbook so I’m a huge fan of your work. Now I discover your Patreon and your tutorial are so good cause you have talent and you are a good teacher, It’s priceless. This studie about environement is really successful I learn so many thing for my own work so thank you share your knowledge.

Thank you so much, your comment means a lot! Your tutorial really inspired me to practice environments way more 🙏

Anni Tendo

wow, it turned out so beautiful!! great job :)

Loish

so glad you like it!! i feel like the more i practice environments, the more i learn that it's about those small details.

Loish

Thank you a lot! I have so many beautiful reference photos that i would love to paint up. I love how just a little bit of grass on a pond catches your eye, and while for somebody this is just a simple country side road, for an artist, turns into this mesmorizing environment! <3 its beautiful!

I loved this tutorial so much, I actually tried it myself and it was so much fun to do :D (it's on my instagram @niunae)

Anni Tendo

Really appreciate your tutorials, Lois! Thank you so much. Trying to do one of these right now... man you make it look easy haha!

Adelle Gough

i'm glad you found it helpful tracey!

Loish

Loved this tutorial.. thank you so much for doing this Lois!

Nush Rass

Thank u soooo much! This was really helpful 💖

Lizzuka

Thank you! I paint landscapes often and it was really helpful to see your approach. It helped me see a few areas I have been struggling with in a new way.

That would be awesome 😍

Radka Kopecka (radu.k.art)

thank you! haha i still don't know the proper name of those things.

Loish

glad you enjoyed it!!

Loish

hey stella! yep, procreate is really different. having said that, I've done quite a lot of environments in procreate and found it better for using textured brushes. I made all of these on the ipad: https://loish.net/project/cevennes-2018/ I could dig up the process videos and write up some notes on how I did those / how it differs from my method in photoshop :)

Loish

Wonderful.

Rob Callicotte

Could you ever make a tutorial about environment painting in procreate? I really rely on the lasso and color pick tools, both of which are not as user-friendly in procreate. I'm trying to do more plein air painting, but really struggling. Any tips or advice? I know you've mentioned before about some of the difficulties of using procreate.

Stella Rose

I loved this tutorial ❤️ It was well explained, the colors and the atmosphere are amazing. It was a joy to watch 😌

Mona

It is a great tutorial 😍😍😍

NadiaMakesSomeArt

This tutorial is just P E R F E C T!! I love all the tips, messiness, short-cuts, color tweaks to get the most of a simple image. The atmosphere of the final piece is awesome and I especially appreaciate that you added the character and explained what you did and why! A little bonus which I also enjoyed is how you giggled when saying power tower, that made my day :)) Thank you so much for this one!

Radka Kopecka (radu.k.art)

It was amazingly helpful!! Thank you so much ❤️

Gamze Turhan

Jaaaa deze heb ik nodig! <3 Kan niet wachten om deze in alle rust te bekijken en je lessen toe te passen.

ClaireMillerian

yes for sure! I have audition to tweak the audio, I need it to get rid of noise and tweak the levels. but I've never tried headphones while recording! thanks for this excellent tip!

Loish

No problem! It also helps to adjust your audio afterwards, tweaking it a bit. It can easily be done in Audacity for instance. There are some helpful videos out there for that too, still not sure if I'm using the right tweaks myself though ;) It sure takes some time getting used to talking in the mic, especially when drawing and talking at the same time. Oh and I also found out it helps to wear headphones connected to the mic so you can hear yourself while talking.

Flo

Yess!! Love that dynamic range of colors. I can finally learn how you did it and then miserably fail to recreate it haha

Abhi Johal

thank you so much!! yep, I had it in that direction, but I just kept leaning way too far away from the mic. I'm definitely gonna check out the youtube vids! thank you for your help :)

Loish

Thanks for sharing Loish! I always struggle with audio as well, even with the proper set up 😅 Do make sure you turn the microphone in the right direction, so with the 'Blue' logo toward your mouth and the dial on the other side should be on the circle with the little indent. You can find some videos on YouTube about how to set up as well. Good luck!

Flo

Yayy! Finally here ❤️ can’t wait to save up some time and watch this!

MJ