Quilt Barn Pencil Drawing

 

Hello, for this week’s blog post, I decided to do a quick mountain scene with a waterfall to better demonstrate the technique that I have been using with the erasers. From start to finish the drawing only took a little over two hours. Which for me is very quick because many of the drawings I do will take me ten or more hours depending on the level detail. Anyway, I also filmed the drawing as it was progressing, and the video is attached to show exactly what I am doing. Sadly, I had an issue with my camera while I was filming the foreground rocks and water fall and I did not get that segment filmed. However, the technique I used was essentially the same as the background mountains.

Because I wanted to do a quick drawing to film, I decided to do a vignette. A vignette is a type of drawing that fades out on one, two, three or all four corners of the paper. Meaning that the drawing does not cover the entire paper. This is often used to draw the view’s attention to the main focus of the work by leaving the edges incomplete. It can also be a time saver for the artist by not having to work on details of a drawing that are less important to the overall image.

For this drawing, I started with a makeup sponge and graphite powder. Spreading the graphite around the center of the paper using tight circular strokes for the most part. Once I had the center of the paper covered with graphite powder, I started to create the clouds by erasing them in using a kneadable eraser. When the clouds were finished, I started with a stick eraser to create the mountains in the background.

Moving to the mid-ground, I started using a 2B and 3B pencil to softly draw in the foot hill. I like to include foot hills in this type of drawing to give the finished work more depth. This is important, because without adding these layers, the work will appear flat and may lack interest. If you study the drawing when completed, you will notice that the background mountains have a lot of details, as well as the foreground. However, the mid-ground is left more as a suggestion. This is intentional, because they are not a main focus of the work and I do not want them to draw the focus of the view away from the areas that are more important. The main focus is the background mountains and the waterfall in the foreground. The dark sky with he clouds are more to add atmosphere and to make the background mountains stand out.

Once I finished the mid-ground, I added the foreground waterfall and the rocks using the same technique that I used for the mountains. Using a stick eraser, I created the shapes that I wanted. Then went back with a 6B pencil and created the details. Sadly, this is where I had issues with my camera, and I did not capture this area as part of the video.  

One important thing to remember when working on a drawing is to focus on your angles. For the waterfall, I ensured I used a stroke with the eraser that curved down in the direction I wanted the water to go. Then for the stream in the foreground, I use a horizontal stroke trying to keep a level as possible. For the large rocks, my focus was on the direction that I wanted to rocks to lay. Also, I needed to focus on where the light would be hitting the rocks and what would be more in the shadows. This is what gives the rocks more of a 3D feel and keeps them from looking flat.

Well that is about it for this week. Again, this was a fast little drawing that I really enjoyed doing. Please let me know what you think or just say hi in the comments below. Have a good week.