Southwestern Pen & Ink Landscape Drawing

This is a pen & ink lesson I recently finished up with my Grade 9's. The kids really enjoyed it and it was the perfect lesson for the end of the year.

It uses simple materials: white paper and black pens (ball point, rollerball pens, whatever you have). It also reinforces basic landscape drawing skills as well as hatching techniques. I found the initial idea from this website which has drawing assignments for art teachers.

So I gave students a handout which had ideas for their Southwestern style landscape- cactuses, pinnacles, buttes, mesas, desert plants, etc. They did a practice sketch first in their sketchbook (see below). You could of course also show the kids a slideshow of desert landscape photos from Arizona, New Mexico, etc.

For the good copy, simply start off with a Southwestern-style horizon line.

Then begin adding detail: students had to include a background, middle ground and foreground.

They did their good copy in pencil first, but you could also easily draw it straight away in pen.

In their sketchbooks they also practised hatching and cross-hatching techniques using a black pen.

You can find some good printable handouts from this website: http://www.artyfactory.com/

Image via: http://www.artyfactory.com/

Here's a detail of some pen hatching.  I explained to them that it's a way to show value through line.

Here are some of the Grade 9 results. I love all the different styles of hatching.

Ta daaa!