From initial iPad sketches to refining the final composition, follow along in this step-by-step landscape painting demonstration as Kimball Geisler navigates creative challenges, balances colors, and brings his vision to life on canvas.
Step 1
Kimball first sketched out compositional possibilities on his iPad. Once he had his idea for the painting, he turned to the canvas — linen toned with earth colors. His quick under-drawing featured linework and hatching. “It’s not about form or correct values at this point,” he says. “It’s just organizing shapes and indicating shadows to get a sense for the composition.”
Step 2
“I punched in the sky at this point,” Kimball recalls. “It’s not meant to be perfect or accurate, but it gives the sense that there is orange rock. Then it’s about building interesting shapes from bottom to top and from left to right, and distributing those shapes in an interesting way.”
Step 3
Kimball says he waits on painting the foreground if the foreground seems like it will be straightforward and simple. This changes if the foreground seems to present a problem. “Here, I didn’t know entirely how it was going to work, and it was a fight figuring out what I was going to do,” he says. “I’m not used to this type of scenery, with a lot of exposed dirt interspersed with grass and sagebrush. The outcome of the foreground wasn’t completely determined until the very end.”
Step 4
The artist broke up the foreground into shapes he saw in the landscape, and he added clouds to the sky. His intention was to balance the way the sky was broken up by clouds with the way the foreground dirt was broken up by vegetation and other elements. “There is an echo there,” Kimball notes.
One may notice the purplish area in the foothills on the left in Step 3, which the artist decided needed to be greatly diminished. “I liked the tone of the purple,” he says. “It came from the iPad sketch. I liked the angle of it; I thought it was interesting. But the iPad sketch didn’t have the foreground in shadow. That shadow really complicated things, and the purple area didn’t work when considering the shadow area. The Vermilion Cliffs have bluffs that proved difficult to orchestrate in an interesting way. It just didn’t work out.”
Step 5
Many paintings go through what could be called their “awkward teenage phase,” and Geisler says that’s what happened in this step. “I do a pretty good job of hating my painting throughout the process — in a constructive way,” says the artist.
“It’s not me getting down on myself but rather being matter of fact and resolving problems. This was my painting at its absolute worst. The bluffs were totally unresolved, and the sky was too chaotic. The sky being chaotic somehow made the foreground feel too chaotic as well. Still, the piece had enough going for it that I felt comfortable with where it was at that point.”
Step 6
“If you focus on something that’s less important too early, it’s a danger,” Kimball says. “But you can simplify details later. That’s the story with the sky. I had to really simplify it toward the end. The skies that I choose for my paintings are picked by fiat. I make them up so that they work with the landscape. The shadows on the rocks relate to the sky in some way.” In this final phase, he also laid down a purplish glaze composed of magenta, blue, a painting medium, and a touch of earth color (perhaps transparent red oxide) to darken the foreground so that it appears to clearly be in shadow.
Connect with the artist at www.kimballgeisler.com.
Editor’s Note: Join us for the 6th Annual Plein Air Live online art conference, featuring Kathleen Hudson, Kevin Macpherson, Kami Mendlik, and many more! The event takes place November 12-14, 2025, with an Essential Techniques Day on November 11. Learn more at PleinAirLive.com.
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