Landscapes are tricky, as I mentioned earlier. The trick I am employing is to isolate individual elements and try to practice drawing them. I looked through the list of images and managed to narrow down to a few with very harsh lighting. The nice thing about harsh lighting is that there is very little gradation in the shades  you have very deep blacks and very bright whites. The image I chose to draw at the end was a early dry tree (more like a shrub) titled San Rafael Reef. This is also from the set of excellent images in the Ancient shape of man.

I have isolated the plant from the slightly more complex background. I guess I could have worked a bit more to showing some of the environment but decided I would keep it for future projects. The sun seems right overhead, The photographer has employed much skill in determinng the right exposure and developing / printing the image. It is usually very difficult to bring suble shades with harsh afternoon light but the image manages to do that. Was a nice challenge to see if I can get anywhere close to the actual print.

There are standard techniques for drawing perspectives. I have formally studied them and was good at some point in time. But doing it free hand and through visualizing in the mind is a bit more trickier than drafting solids in perspective. Anyhow, as part of my the studies series, I am working out whatever I see. This time iI found my music player as a nice subject.

I initially wanted to work on the lights and shadows as it looks very complex, but once I started struggling with the geometry, I figured I will take the lessons one step at a time. So it is only a perspective study this time.