A couple of months ago i decided i would stop avoiding learning how to paint human figures in landscape. I had no experience at all in painting people and had previously run away from taking on the subject. However, this time i decided i’d give it a try. The errors far outran the trials, but although i’m certainly far from comfortable with it, i can see it’s a topic worth continuing to pursue. I should note that for this learning experience at least we were spared trying to do real portraiture. No faces were required, so it was ok to paint the figures from the side, or from behind. There are multiple reference photos for this painting — a couple for the human subject and a couple for the landscape. I attach one of each below. Originally i thought i might actually paint both figures shown in one of the reference photos, but that was not to be. Painting is 8” x 10”, oil on panel.

I did not add the backpack to the figure because i like the way the blue shirt complements the blue sky.