Why I Finally Fell in Love with Landscape Painting

Philip Sue’s Landscape Course Review

May 12, 2025

Hey friends, 😄

So… I did a thing. I bought Philip Sue’s actual landscape course. Yep, the big one. Not cheap. Like, at all. But dang, it was worth every single coin.

I already had his beginner course over at 21 Draws. And it’s good! But honestly? It was missing a lot of things for me. It felt more like an introduction than a full roadmap. This new one though? I loved every second of it. I learned so much, my brain is still buzzing.

Suddenly, all those Patreon videos of his started making more sense. The techniques, the decisions, click. Landscape and environment art has never been “my thing.” I always disliked it, avoided it, looked the other way. But deep down, I wanted to be able to tell bigger stories in my art. And landscapes? They do that. They expand your storytelling, no question.

Lately, I’ve been giving it another shot. Something just clicked. I figured it could open some new doors for me, and the more I played around with it… the more I actually liked it.

Now, the course isn’t simple. But the technique? It’s not crazy complicated either. Once you get the hang of his workflow, it’s actually pretty easy to follow and I really like how he approaches things. That said, I’ve got my own struggles. He jumps right into shapes, bam, first thing. I can’t do that. I need to sketch first, find the composition, place things, then tweak and build up shapes. That’s how my brain works.

His style of shape-sketching? Not for me. Maybe it’ll work for you. But for me, working with big shapes makes it hard to “see” the depth. My sketching brain just doesn’t click with that method.

And colors… oh boy. I cannot do what he does in his Patreon videos, just diving into colors straight away? Nope. I need greyscale. Me and color? We’re fighting. And light? Don’t even get me started. Total mess. But greyscale helps me see things better. Once I’ve nailed that down, I alpha lock the layers and start experimenting with color. That works for me. Kinda.

I tried to improve my color harmony while doing the course too. It worked a little. The only issue? Art programs use the modern color wheel, but I learned with the traditional one and they mess with my brain. Seriously. In the traditional wheel, red and green are complimentary. In the modern one? Nope. It’s red and cyan. Either way, they don’t always play nice. They’re both strong and can totally fight for attention in a piece.

Anyway, Philip covers three different paintings in the course. Two landscapes and one cityscape. Haven’t tried the city yet. One day. But this course, paired with a livestream about moose, actually got me to draw moose. With landscapes. Something I’ve never done before. And I’m really proud of most of them.

But… I noticed a bad habit creeping in. The first two pieces went great, course was fresh in my brain. By the third one? That knowledge started slipping. ADHD moment, 100%. All that fresh data? Just floats off after a day or two. Even if I go back and rewatch, it’s like it doesn’t stick. So frustrating.

Still, I tried something cool. I redrew a painting I’d made right before taking the course. The first redo flopped. Knowledge? Gone. But I didn’t give up. I tried again, limited myself to just two colors, and boom, it turned out so much better.

One thing I picked up from the course was using a color palette. Never done that before. I usually follow the reference and try to stick to those rules, but wow, it’s hard. I really want to get better at just choosing colors and staying with them. That’s a big focus for me right now.

Honestly, this course made me create more landscapes than ever before. Making my own from scratch is tough though, I end up drawing things I’ve just seen recently. So working with references helps. I use a few, build something from them, then ditch them once they start messing with my color decisions. Otherwise, I end up copying more than creating.

All in all, this course was amazing. Totally worth the money. The only thing that annoyed me? Right after I bought it, he dropped another course for like 1k. Come on, man. Let me breathe a little!

Still, I’m kind of curious about that next step he teased. He hides it well. Only shows it off when he feels like it, I guess. We’ll see if I end up grabbing that one too, or if I just stick to the occasional Patreon dive.

Weirdly enough, painting landscapes turned out to be super relaxing. I really enjoy it now and have no idea why I avoided it for so long. What was I thinking? 🙃

Maybe it was all perfect timing. The Great Moose Migration was happening, so there was inspiration in the air. Could be. Who knows?

Anyway, it’s May now. That means MerMay! So of course, I had to do a little MerMay-inspired illustration. 🧜‍♀️✨

Until next time, Happy Drawing!