How To Draw Landscapes Trees Grass Foliage Water Using Graphite pencils

Hi everyone, welcome back. Drawing demonstration for you today. I'm just going to quickly run you through the kit that I'll be using. First of all, I'm going to be using Derwent sketching paper today. I've never used this before, so this will be my first time. I'm looking forward to testing this. For pencils, I'll be using an HB woodless pencil. which I will use with a knife blade to scratch graphite powder out onto the paper, and two wooden pencils. One is an HB and the other is a 2B. A large Koh-I-Noor clutch pencil with a thick, chunky lead inside. That's a 2B lead. A few blending stumps. A good selection of erasers. A large Derwent eraser. A Tombow Mono fine-point eraser. A Derwent pencil eraser. And of course, a kneadable eraser. And last but not least, I have an old watercolor hake brush here. which I use for brushing away bits of eraser and also for softening areas of graphite. That's all the equipment I'll be using today. Right, let's get started. OK, so I'm just scraping some graphite powder onto the paper. It's going to be another landscape, trees, water that sort of thing. I'm going to put a bit of emphasis on drawing foliage and grass in this one because several of you asked for that, and I thought I'd Create this video and show you a few techniques for doing so. sort of thing. I will be creating more in real time videos on how to draw grass and how to draw foliage, etc., in the future because there are several methods, well, there are quite a lot of ways Actually, I'll show you those in the future, but hopefully just for now this will whet your appetite and give you a little bit of inspiration and a few tips. OK, so I've mixed in the graphite powder, rubbed it in with a kitchen towel I haven't rubbed it completely smooth; I've left it fairly patchy. to create a nice effect, and now I'm using the Derwent eraser just to draw in some tree trunks and some guidelines in the landscape just so that I know where I'm going. Fairly crude at this stage, but it doesn't Matter, we're going to refine it as we go along. Just using the HB pencil now to fill in a few. areas I overlooked with the graphite powder, and add a bit more detail Here and there. I'm just softening. turn it off and blend it in with the blending stump Trying to keep everything in the background nice and soft. Now I'm just using the kneadable eraser to Pull out a few of the bigger highlights there—that's going to be a sunlit area at the back of the trees there. I guess it's quite hard to see what the picture is at this stage. That's going to be a river a bank that I'm just drawing there, or a bank side of the lake I want the picture to look like it does in my mind. I'm basically working from imagination again. Making this up as I go along. I've got a few references. photos on my side of trees and forests and things like that just for a little bit of inspiration. But once again Once I've put the graphite powder down, I follow The marks that remain and just think that kind of looks like a tree shape, so does that. Some of them are quite deliberate. I work the graphite powder to make certain areas a bit darker. on purpose. I know I want the trees and foliage to be A bit darker. But it's not very accurate—like I said, it's fairly crude. But after that stage we're Just working in detail, refining everything, and progressing slowly. Building up the picture. I'm just using the HP pencil. Still, and I'm just drawing on the distant bank over there. There are going to be some reeds. sticking out from the right-hand side there. Just keep softening and blending all the time. It's still that three-step process I use. Just apply some graphite, blend it in, and then do some erasing and see what you get. left with and work from that. It should give you a really good start. It's simply a matter of repeating those three steps throughout the drawing. At different intervals and in different orders. Obviously, the detail is going to get smaller, sharper, and so on, as you move further forward into the picture. But it's still the same process—put some graphite down. Blend it in and erase. As we apply the graphite, we're using different grades of pencil. to create lighter and darker areas. For example, right now I'm using the 2B Coenor Clutch Pencil There's a really thick, chunky lead in there. It hasn't been sharpened. or anything, it's fairly rounded at the end. I've deliberately left it that way. so that it doesn't cut into the paper too deeply. It sits somewhat more on top of the grain. which makes it easier to blend in and easier to erase. It's really good for practicing these background foliage techniques. where there are little bits of light and little bits of dark and It's softened off and blended in, almost like an underpainting, if you like. It's a delightful pencil to use; I highly recommend getting one, actually. Just using a fine eraser there, just to Draw in a few fine little branches and a little bit of leaf detail. just to sort of get me started and start filling in the right-hand side of the trees there. Using the same technique, just little circular motions and squiggles just to give a somewhat random foliage effect. Again, it's fairly rough because it's only going to be in the background. We're going to erase over the top of that and then go in with maybe HB or even a 2B pencil later on to get a few of the darker tones, carefully drawing around some of the highlighted areas and things like that. At this stage don't be too concerned; just kind of think very basically just about getting the basic shapes in Just a little bit of detail there at the end of the trees but just in general, the basic shapes, a few basic tones And that will give us a solid foundation to begin adding the details. I just keep working at it and gradually soften it until I'm satisfied. overall appearance of it I kind of step away from it, move away from that area and start with the background trees over there. Sometimes you can also become overly focused by working on the same area continuously So I like to move around the picture a little bit and work on it. Slowly and build it up bit by bit. As I've said before, in a previous video, it's fine if you want to work in a more conventional way. using grid methods and just filling in little squares at a time or if you prefer to just work on one Work on one area of the picture at a time and finish it completely before moving on to another; that's perfectly fine. It's just that I tend not to work that way. I'm extremely unconventional. in my approach to things, but that's just me, I guess. I'm trying to stick to just drawing these right-hand trees. just for your ease of viewing, really so that you can actually see how the foliage is built up a little bit more because I don't actually film when I draw the right-hand trees. There's no point; you've already seen me draw the left-hand trees, and it's exactly the same. the process that I use for those So, as I said, I'm just trying to stick to the right-hand side at the moment. which is tormenting me because usually I like to sort of Work all over the place. But again, that's personal. Choice, that's up to you; just do your chosen method, whatever it is. Whatever is easy for you and whatever works best for you is fine. Again, that's just an HP pencil there, just starting to bring a bit more detail, a few slightly darker tones just in there background trees. You'll notice I'm blending all the time, once I've put that graphite down I go straight over it with a blender, keep it nice and soft in the background And gently pull out a few highlights and even blend them in a bit. Just trying to define the edge of that tree there with the HP pencil because I am aware that some of the The foreground branches are going to actually hang over that. So I'm just adding a few darker marks here; it's probably not easy for you to notice at the moment, but As the picture unfolds, it will all become clearer. I'm using the Derwent pencil eraser there. as well as to highlight the features on the trees. It's one of my favorite pieces of gear, actually, for Erasing for highlights on trees gives a lovely foliage effect. But you can kind of achieve the same effect if you Squeeze the tip onto a kneadable eraser to get a nice fine point on it. and just keep dabbing away at the graphite. It will pull some Nice little spots, and it'll kind of leave shapes. and stuff like that for you. For some reason, I just like the Derwent eraser. it just seems to work for me and I'm also Using the Tombow Mono eraser, which has a very, very fine point. It gives a finer line, a finer mark, but it's not quite as sticky as the Derwent eraser. I just have to lightly touch the Derwent eraser to the graphite. and it pulls it off. It makes it very quick to do Highlights on foliage. I'm just using the HP pencil. just to put in a shaded side on the tops of the trees there. It's also helping me understand where some of the branches are going to fall across over the tree trunks. It is very time It's more time-consuming than it is difficult. Actually, it's really just a three-part process. Just repeat it. But it can become very time-consuming, so that's Really, what you've got to prepare yourself for is sitting down for a couple of hours. to obtain this level of detail. There are faster ways to do this; you can use a battery eraser. for example, but the marks won't be Quite so fine, small, and detailed. The battery erasers can really remove a lot of graphite. straight through to the paper. I mean, that's really good, that's great, that's kind of what you're looking for. But those somewhat repetitive marks from the battery eraser, I mean, you can use the eraser on its side or right on it the tip and you can get a slight variation in the marks but Sometimes it just looks a little too repetitive for my taste. But again, that's up to you—it will save you a lot. of time if you want to use one of those. I sometimes do especially on larger scale drawings. It just generally means I have to go in with a pencil and draw around some of the marks just to reshape them a little bit. So you're probably not much better off time-wise, really. But as I said, it's entirely up to you. I'm using a 2B. Pencil now just to get a few darker areas in. That's as dark as I actually go in this drawing—just a 2B and an HB. When you've been drawing for a while You tend to just stick to a very limited number of pencils. I mean, there are some pictures I draw using nothing but an HB pencil. pencil and I just vary the pressure to get the light and dark tones. But one thing you must be careful about is that you don't press too hard with an HB pencil to try and get your dark tones because you will destroy the the grain of the paper and things will start to look a little bit messy And you can also get that graphite sheen, which a lot of people don't like. If you press too hard and you work areas too much and the graphite will start to shine, which can look a little bit unpleasant But I find that with a 2B pencil you can get some pretty dark tones with just a 2B pencil on its own, and you don't really come across that graphite Shine. It's when you start getting past the 4B, the 5B. that's when you start getting more into it shiny softer graphite. Personally, I'm not I'm actually not that bothered by it—I'm kind of used to it; I just sort of see it as part of the nature of things. of graphite, but I know it can put off a lot of people. So I tend to stick to a small handful of pencils for any one drawing So I'm just kind of messing around now, just drawing that. bank in, just trying to get it to look to have the right perspective and trying to place the lights and darks correctly. You can basically see the kit I'm using and how I'm doing it. There's no real need for me to explain that. Now I'm working into the foliage A little bit more with the 2B pencil, just establishing A few more darks. I won't go mad at this stage. I'll just put a few in and see how it looks, then work on a different area. and then come back, take another look at it, and think Just a bit lighter, a bit darker, a bit more detail. Whatever. I find that if you stay in one area for too long It weighs you down a little bit, it can get a little bit overwhelming, so I often find that if you walk away From your picture, go and look at something else for 10 minutes, go and have a drink or whatever, then come back with a fresh eye that can truly help you see the picture in a different way, you won't get so bogged down with What you're actually drawing, you tend to come back to with a fresh, clear eye. full of inspiration and that can be truly helpful especially doing this monotonous foliage detail I definitely recommend a 20-minute break. drawing session and then a 10-minute break and come back with a fresh eye. I think the The drawing took me about five hours, four and a half to five hours. In total, so you can imagine It would drive you crazy, wouldn't it, if you had to sit there that long, just doing these little tiny marks all the time, erasing small leaf shapes and then filling in the spaces between with a pencil but there's no way Round it off, as I said, it's time-consuming, so. I often let my drawings go on for a few days, just a couple of hours. Every day I spend with them. At the end of the day, this is a hobby—it's meant to be enjoyed, and if I'm not enjoying it, well There's no point in my doing it, so I don't like to get bogged down. or get stressed out by it; I just like to have fun and relax. So if you're finding this a little bit tedious just Put it aside, leave it until the next day, and then come back to it. You can see now where I've put the highlights on the trees And I've gone back in again with a darker pencil. Wow, that was a major shift in lighting there. I am working in natural daylight now; previously, I was working in the evening. in artificial light, but you can see now I've worked on that tree a bit more, actually I've worked a little bit more off camera. also, but it's the same process I just added more highlights and kept going back and forth. and outlining them with an HB pencil and a 2B pencil and if it looked too difficult I'd Smooth them out or erase it—I'd just keep working on it until I was satisfied with the result. And it's those same three processes that I use throughout. You know, put the graphite down, blend, erase Just repeating that over and over again. So now I'm working on the background trees, I'm being a lot more careful. conscious that I've got to keep this nice and soft So I'm looking at the trees in the foreground. As I'm drawing the background trees, I don't want the background trees to look as detailed. Obviously, those are the foreground trees; I want them to be much softer. to create the illusion that they are positioned further back into the scene So it's actually a different foliage technique. There's more blending involved; I'm actually using the blender, the graphite that's on the end of the blender to actually draw some of the darker areas Then go in with the eraser and pull out a few highlights. here and there, and then soften those edges as well, because you don't want them to be as white or as light as the highlights in the foreground trees, so they just need to be softened back a little bit Another useful tool for doing that without actually moving Too much graphite makes for a nice soft watercolor brush. a natural hair brush like a goat hair brush A paintbrush is what I use. to rub over the graphite Several times, you can actually press quite hard with a very soft hairbrush. and it won't move the graphite too much, it'll just Gently, very subtly, soften it off just nicely whereas if you tried that with the blending stump It will work, but you have to be very gentle with it. I mean, you can scrape graphite from one end of the paper. Blend them together with a blending stump—I mean, you can really smudge a lot of graphite with one of those. So just be careful when you're doing your background trees, just keep it nice and gentle if you're using a blending stump I do recommend using a softer brush; I mean, sometimes I get lazy and just Keep going with a blending stump, but it's much safer. to actually use a very soft brush you know, you won't rub the picture away, which you risk doing by standing too close to it blending stump I'm just figuring out the shape and form of these trees. and the branches, just establishing the lights and darks just gently blending some of the darks in with the very small blending stump and when it's all done, that's when I'll use the brush just to go over it and just Gently ease everything down all at once, just very subtly. At this stage, I actually didn't like it. left side of the picture, far left of the picture where the distant trees are just barely visible through that backlit haze area there, so it was very distracting, so right at the end I decided to sort of crop that and kind of frame it just up to the first foreground tree trunk there—just made for a much nicer composition much easier on the eyes It's a bit confusing because I have that small light section right in the middle. and then I've got the small light on the left side there I don't know, it's just made for uncomfortable viewing, I think, so I decided to crop that was left off So I'm still working on these background trees; I don't want them completely somewhat misty or soft, yet I still want a reasonable amount of detail present You can see, there I've just softened it back with the brush. but I still want a good amount of lights and darks and to be able to tell that they are tree branches there, it's not just some kind of one misty shape or anything similar So it's that trade-off all the time, it's that balance. the amount of detail without it clashing with the foreground trees. You can see there I've Completed the right-hand trees off camera. with exactly the same method that I used for the left side So there's no real need for me to show that. it keeps the video nice and short as well. So now I'm working on the water now and the banks drawing in some of the darker areas on the reed beds to shape that bank in the background So I hope that was helpful to you the ones who wanted to see how I drew foliage I know it wasn't much of an explanation or very detailed. It's quite difficult with a speed drawing, but you can actually slow the video down. I think there's a small square or something at the bottom of the video. If you click on that, you can adjust the video's playback speed. But as I said, I will be making some more real time demos on foliage and drawing grass in the future so Just bear with me, I'll get them done as soon as possible. as best as I possibly can. I'm just using the HB pencil again You've probably noticed by now that I've changed from the yellow HB pencil which was a Dixon Ticonderoga to a Derwent pencil, the reason being that I keep getting bits of grit, flecks of clay in the Ticonderoga pencils so if you watch my video about the Dixon Ticonderogas, you know the best pencil in the world video I kind of regret saying that now; I take back what I said. They're not nearly as good as a Derwent pencil at all; there's too much grit in them. If you've bought some of these and experienced the same, let me know because I'm not sure if I got a bad batch, but the last two pencils I actually I probably got three or four lumps of grit in each one. I've never had, I can't even remember having any grit in a Derwent. pencil, so yeah, I'm getting a little bit Honestly, I'm disappointed in them, but I'm going to use them anyway—just let me know. if you've purchased any of these, I'd be interested to know whether you've experienced The same problem. Anyway, I'm using the HB pencil. a kind of horizontal shading strokes there just to try and emulate what lies above the water I'm just trying to capture the reflections now usually I draw the reflections in the opposite way to create the illusion of depth, but This is just another way of doing it; you can do this kind of horizontal thing. shading technique and it works fine for water And as you can see, I'm blending it and softening it off as well. and then going in again with the eraser to add some highlights to the water, tiny ripples and just emphasizing some of the reflections a little more You see, I keep repeating myself—it's the same thing. three-stage process at all times, so if you're a beginner and you just I don't know where to start, you know Just do that three-step process, and you'll be well on your way. Just kind of scribbling a little bit shrubbery there, just at the back of the trees just darkening the shadows a little bit So now I'm kind of thinking about what I'm going to be doing in the foreground You know, without a reference picture I'm making it up a little bit. I'm just using the 2B pencil there to darken some of the lines. reflections and some of the water to give the picture a little bit more Punch, it looks a little bit bland there. so I just thought maybe a 2B pencil, just To make it a bit darker, just add a little more to the picture. So now I'm using the kneadable eraser. I've kind of flattened it at the end; I'm just adding little highlights here and there. just literally trying to find a way around the foreground of what is going to look best I'm just trying to figure out the lay of the land. where the shadows are going to be I'm just slowly building up I'm just adding and removing Again, what I think looks good if something looks a bit too light I'm just going into that top-left corner there, just darkening it up a little bit. It just seems to add a little bit of balance to the picture. I'm just kind of blending it in with the surrounding area Add a little bit of texture there. I'm starting to add a little bit of detail, a little bit of Grass here and there, just a little flex with the pencil to start with just until I'm Happy with the way it kind of looks I'm ready to change at any moment; I'll erase those pencil marks. If they don't look right, I'll simply erase them and do something else. I just start fairly loosely, just putting a few little grass strokes here and there. just blending them in, stepping back, and just seeing how it looks Does the land look lateral, is the grass making it look like There's too much of a hill there or something like that. I'll just go in and adjust it. Get the dark tones established so that the shadowy grass is rendered properly. and the lighter areas are where the high points in the grass are And now I'm going in with the Tombow Mono fine point eraser. and just doing a few more grass strokes, just making flicks up just for the highlighted areas of grass, even at this stage I'm still unsure about what this is going to look like. Sometimes I can't actually visualize what the The end result is going to be so that I just kind of Do my best and find my way around the picture As best as I can, just literally by doing these little grass strokes Thinking, would a highlight look good there? Let me try putting it in. No, it doesn't. I'll take it out. Obviously, it's much easier when you're copying a photo, but for this I'm just finding my way around a little bit, and once again you just saw There I was, softly brushing it back, which actually can help a lot. because the highlights you pull out, the tiny grass stroke highlights that you pull out when you go over them with the soft brush they just take on a little bit of graphite, it just tones down the white a bit, not too much, just softens it back slightly And then you can go over it again with the eraser. and pull some highlights over the top of what you've just done and you're beginning to slowly see the layers accumulating, and now when you go back in as I have done now with an HP pencil and start just emphasizing some of the grass strokes a little bit more, now we're starting to get contrast with the lights and the Darks, and it's starting to take shape. and once again it's a matter of simply repeating that, just kind of Soften it over with the brush, so we've already got some lighter areas that have been softened previously and then some highlights added over them and they are softened with a brush, and then you Go over it again, pull out a few more lighter highlights, and go in again with the HP. pencil, still doing the grass strokes, just little flicks up and down and just keep softening back, and that'll slowly build up layer by layer, this kind of illusion of grass and what I'm doing here is very, I'd say somewhat impressionistic, really, I wouldn't call this in any way not realism at all, it's just very impressionistic but it does create a nice illusion, a pleasant effect of grass and if you keep going, building up these layers with the lights and the darks, just gently softening them back, you will actually eventually get to something that looks quite realistic, so all that Is it just an HP pencil for the dark areas? and it's beginning to create the shaded areas of the grass, which is now adding a bit of shape the tufts of grass if you like You can start to see shapes appearing in the picture. and you just kind of go with it; if it looks right, just emphasize it a little bit more, obviously without going overboard Or anything, I guess. Really, I'm kind of an opportunist. drawer or painter, you know I kind of Just, like I said, throw the graphite down and see what happens. Then just go with whatever I see, just jump on any opportunity I think looks good. That looks like a small tuft of grass—kind of emphasize it. or whatever, you know, I guess That's all part of creativity as well, so yeah It's not an easy method to teach how to draw grass; it's just the same. the process of just layering up and layering up without overdoing it, without going too dark or too extreme with anything, and you can see there, look, I just keep softening back with that paintbrush, it's a lovely nice soft effect without destroying the work you've done Pretty much that's it now, just kind of finishing off the picture, tidying up around the edges. with the eraser so I get a nice straight edge I didn't quite fit the picture into the frame there, but what I'm actually doing, I've just decided to go over the grass with a Use a kneadable eraser to gently soften some areas and slightly lighten others. Well, here's the finished result. I hope you like it. I hope it's been helpful to you. Thank you very much for watching. And I'll see you next time, bye for now