Landscape Drawing in Graphite Pencil Step by Step YouTube

Hello and welcome to my channel. I'm going to do this landscape in graphite pencil this time, and I'm going to take you through the drawing process step by step. The first thing I need to work out is the composition, and my reference photo is in the top left corner if you want to check it out. It'll also be in the description. So in terms of the composition, it can be divided roughly into three parts. About two-thirds of the height of the paper is the line of the trees. And then about one-third of the height is going to be this grass and the fields. Now this dirt road is going to be roughly in the middle, a little bit more to the right. I should probably say a few words about the materials. The pencils I'm using are Faber-Castell Pitt Graphite Matte pencils. So these are matte graphite pencils. They are less shiny than the conventional ones. The paper is a Fabriano sketching paper. The first thing I'm doing here is shading the sky. So that's the first step once I have a rough sketch or composition worked out. And I'm using a 2B graphite pencil, one of the lighter ones. So I want to put down some value in that background area on the sky. And that's because I want to draw some clouds. Now if you look at my reference, there's not much to see there, so I wanted to make it a bit more interesting, and I wanted to draw a few clouds. So I'm shading the sky, because in order to be able to draw the clouds, I have to use erasers, and I have to create those lighter areas. So in order to be able to do that, first I have to put down at least a little bit of value. I'm blending that with a Q-tip until I get it to look fairly smooth, because I don't want any texture in this area. I don't want any lines or details that would be distracting. And I think you don't need to go much darker than a 2B. It'll be quite enough for some light clouds to show up against this background. The elements in the foreground and the mid-ground will be quite a bit darker. I'm going to start with a kneaded eraser, and in order for this kneaded eraser to work, you have to keep kneading it, so that it's sticky, and so that it can lift up some graphite. So the first thing I'm going to do is, I'm going to drag the kneaded eraser here and there just a little bit, to lift up a little bit of that graphite, to create some lighter areas, some suggestions of clouds. After that, I will refine the edges of those clouds using a pencil eraser. A pencil eraser is like a rubber eraser in a wood casing, which can be sharpened and used like a pencil, and I use a Koh-I-Noor pencil eraser. So once I have these shapes of the clouds, I can proceed with the trees and the other more interesting stuff in the foreground. So I'm going to start with the trees here, and now I'm using a darker pencil for this. If you've never used the matte graphite pencils, the range of these grades is a little bit different than with conventional graphite pencils, but this is one of the darker ones. This is a 10B, and notice what I'm doing here. I slowed down deliberately so that you can see how I'm drawing these distant canopies of trees. I'm using very short, small, circular marks, circular motions, to draw these jagged edges that kind of look like groups of trees and branches, as seen from a distance. So I'm trying to imitate the appearance of foliage, and I'm trying to produce a similar texture here. So these trees in the back are going to appear a little bit darker. Some of the trees and bushes in front of them will be a little bit lighter, at least near the top, because the tops of those canopies will be catching more light. So I decided to stop with those canopies in the distance, and I decided to do a bit more sketching so that I can work out the shapes of some of those canopies which will be closer to the foreground. I need to at least make some suggestions of their shapes so that I can start shading them, because if I don't know what the shapes will be, it's going to be difficult for me to shade them, because I won't really know where I need to put down areas of darker value and where I need to leave those areas of lighter value. Now notice that right now I'm holding my pencil kind of sideways, drawing with a broad side of the pencil, and sometimes, like here, I hold the tip down more vertically. Both things are correct. So sometimes people will tell you you're supposed to hold the pencil this way, sometimes that way, but actually you can use both ways of holding a pencil depending on what you're trying to achieve. Now here I used an even darker pencil to make some suggestions of darker shadow areas in between those canopies, in between those groups of trees. So I first put down some of those darkest bits, or darker bits, and now I'm working on top of them with a slightly lighter pencil again. If you're finding it difficult to keep track of which pencil I'm using right now, it doesn't really matter, to be honest, because all you have to remember is that you have to use at least a couple of different grades. I think four or five is fine, and for the darker shadow areas you're naturally going to want to use some darker ones, like a 14B if you have matte graphite pencils, or an 8B if you're using conventional graphite pencils. And for the lighter areas you're going to use some 4Bs, 6Bs and some others. So here I'm trying to go in and draw some details in between that foliage, maybe some suggestions of branches and some shadow areas. What I'm trying to do essentially is to break up this mass of foliage into smaller shapes so that it looks more like a group of trees and bushes rather than just a huge simple shape. And what you want to do is you want to create some of these irregular edges where it feels like some of those clusters of leaves are sticking out. And that can be a little bit difficult to do if you're trying to work backwards, meaning if you're trying to use just an eraser to achieve those smaller shapes. But what you want to do is you want to try to create those smaller shapes, irregular shapes, while shading. Of course you can go back in like I'm doing now and make some areas a bit lighter by dabbing them with a kneaded eraser or using a pencil eraser. And that way when you dab a little bit you can make it look like some parts of that foliage are kind of sticking out a little bit out of those shadow areas and catching more light from the light source. But you have to work around the edges of those lighter areas otherwise you won't be able to produce those tiny lighter shapes which have a lot of contrast in comparison to the darker background. So there are limitations to what you can achieve with erasing. Be that as it may I moved on to this taller tree or this taller group of trees to the right and again I'm going to draw their canopies here. Maybe I'm going to use a little bit less pressure here because I'm going to try to vary the amount of value in that canopy. I'm going to make some parts of it a bit darker and others a bit lighter. And one of the advantages of holding a pencil like this sideways kind of is that it produces some random and unpredictable texture and shapes. On the other hand if you hold the pencil more perpendicular to the paper you have more control over the types of shapes and the marks that you're trying to create. So both types of shading and drawing have their advantages and disadvantages. So back to what I was saying when somebody tells you that you're supposed to hold a pencil in just this one way that's not really true because you can try to vary the types of strokes and the ways of holding a pencil so that you can create certain effects. Sometimes maybe you want some more precision, you want some finer marks, you want a little bit more control. Sometimes you want more coverage, you want to be able to create smoother transitions, you want to create some unpredictable textures. It really depends on what you're trying to do. There are some of these things that are a little bit difficult to explain if you're a beginner and you haven't really felt what these tools can do. But if you already have some experience then you probably know what I'm talking about. Right now I'm going back in with some darker values inside that canopy trying to create some suggestions of shadow areas in there like maybe you see the whole canopy or groups of canopies there is a little bit darker because it's facing away from the light source but within that canopy there's also going to be some variation some parts of it are going to be darker than the others. Here I did a little bit more sketching and I drew one side of that dirt road and then I worked around the outline of this tree in the middle. I'm going to want this tree to stand out against the background which is why I have to make its outer edge a little bit lighter again. And like I said what you want to do is you want to work around that shape creating smaller marks to create that irregular jagged edge that kind of looks like some leaves and twigs which are sticking out and giving the canopy of the tree that irregular random appearance. Because you don't want to make the trees look too uniform you want as much variety and you want some unpredictable textures and that way your trees will look more natural and more realistic. I'm moving on with this foreground area here so if you look at the reference you'll see that there's an area or a strip of taller grass here next to the trees and then there is an area of slightly shorter grass closer to the path. So right now I'm going to draw this taller grass here and the first thing I'm doing is I'm using one of the darker pencils to create some shadow areas in between those taller blades of grass. So I'm making some suggestions of those darker bits, darker areas and then I'm going over them with some lighter pencils and working over them with a brush. Once I've done that, once I have that established, that mid-tone established and those darker tones in place, I can start working with an eraser. Here I'm going to use a pencil eraser. It's that Koh-I-Noor pencil eraser again and I'm going to start pulling these slightly longer strokes. Now when you're drawing grass or fields or whatever you have to remember that those blades of grass which are closer to you, to your viewpoint, are going to appear taller and larger and the ones which are further away are going to be smaller and smaller and less defined. There's also an area of shadow here in the grass. This shadow is coming from those trees to the left. So I made that part of that of those of that grass a little bit darker and also the edge of the grass which is closer to that shorter grass near the road. I made that a little bit darker because there's going to be a bit of shadow there and that's also going to make for a nice transition between this taller grass and this shorter grass here. So now I'm going to proceed with this shorter grass and here drawing this smaller shorter grass can be a little bit tricky because it can be a bit difficult to produce a texture that kind of looks like short grass especially if you're looking at it from a distance. It's really difficult to produce such small marks. So what I want to do here is I want to draw just a few suggestions of those clumps of grass here and there to create that feeling of depth and suggestions of texture and then I want to drag my pencil like I'm doing now allowing the pencil to add a bit of value to that area but also to create some random texture because a pencil when it interacts with the paper especially if the paper has a little bit of tooth will always produce a bit of texture and you can always use those textures to your advantage. You can use them to create some suggestions of what type of surface you're looking at. If you want to make the surface appear smoother then you're going to use some blending tools. If you want to make it appear more rough then you can leave that texture. So basically that's one of the one of those techniques that I call allowing the pencil to work for you because you can't really draw every single blade of grass, you can't draw every single leaf when you're drawing foliage. What you want to do is you want to allow the pencil to produce some random unpredictable details and textures and you want to use those details and try to turn them into shapes or suggestions of shapes so that you can trick the viewer's eye that they're looking at something really complex. Anyway I'm moving on to this right side of the trees here and I'm breaking that into smaller shapes, shading in between them and creating some more of that texture that is supposed to look like foliage. Notice how when I separate those larger shadow areas from the lighter areas I always go back in making some smaller marks, smaller suggestions of shadow areas in between the branches, in between the foliage and I always try to break up those larger shapes into smaller more interesting shapes so that it feels like we're looking at a bunch of bushes and trees. Now if you feel like this footage is a little bit too fast for you then you can check out my Patreon. On my Patreon you can find a lot of additional content and more importantly you can find longer videos with some real-time footage, full-length narrative videos where you can draw along and work or listen and watch a video at a slower pace and you can see how it was all done. So if you want longer videos and more content my Patreon is the place to go. The link will be in the description of course. Here I'm still continuing to work on these trees on the right side and you can see how I'm trying to vary the shapes of some of those canopies. I want to make them look kind of unpredictable, all different from one another because that's the way the trees are and of course this field or this area of taller grass to the right is going to have to stand out against those trees and bushes above it. So I'm going to try to establish a nice contrast between those trees and that grass and I'm going to make that area, I'm going to make those trees quite a bit darker using a 14B, that's the darkest pencil I have. I normally work with some other ones like a 10B, 8B for much of the foliage and then for the darkest shadow areas I work on top of that with a 14B. You want to use that range of value, you want to use the multiple grades of pencils because you want to create a nice range of value because when you have that range of value you're able to show the volume of objects and you're able to create depth in your drawing. Another thing that's important for creating an illusion of depth in your drawing is of course the way you arrange your elements and the way you organize your composition. So the composition has to be such that it gives the viewer some kind of a feeling of depth. Here I drew that taller grass to the right and now I'm pulling some finishing strokes using my erasers and refining this field to the left as well. So basically all I have left to do is do a little bit more work on this dirt road and do a bit of this shorter grass to the right of that, to the right of that dirt road. So like I said you want to create a composition that gives the viewer an illusion of depth and you can do that by arranging your elements so that the elements in front kind of push the other elements further back giving the viewer some kind of a reference point where they can gauge the distance. For example this path here is in the foreground and it's getting wider and wider as we get closer to our viewpoint and then we have these fields of taller grass or whatever it is that are in front of those trees and then we have kind of rows of trees or canopies stacked one in front of the other and this combination or rather this arrangement of elements creates that illusion of depth in this scene so that you can feel like when you go down that road further down that road you will go into that small forest into those woods. So I'm putting down some finishing touches and the drawing is almost done. Once again I want to remind you if you like my videos don't forget to subscribe and give me a like and comment let me know what you think and don't forget to check out my other videos because I have lots of other landscape drawings not just in graphite but in other techniques as well and for longer videos as usual you should go and check out my Patreon. This is the finished drawing. I hope you like it. I want to thank you for watching and I'm going to see you in the next one. Bye for now!