How to Draw Waterfalls for BEGINNERS

Today we are drawing waterfalls, but the most important part to making your waterfall believable isn't actually in the falls themselves. Okay, right off the bat today on our waterfall drawing, we're gonna get to that most important part, which is giving your waterfalls context. Now, I'm not advising you to draw in your entire scene, excluding your waterfall like I am here. I'm just taking this approach to demonstrate my point, which is if your waterfall isn't feeling waterfall-y, add in some other elements to give it context. My rocky cliff line here is going to make the waterfall very easy to register once I start adding some details there. Now, if you want help drawing these other elements, the rocks, cliffs, or trees, check out my playlist, link down in the description, Techniques to Draw Any Landscape. Very quickly here, a couple other links down in the description. You can shop all the tools I trust and use in my tutorials from Blick Art Materials. I do make a small commission off any purchases from this link. Also, you can join me over on Patreon as well. All the earnings I make from these links go back and support this channel and my artwork. I truly appreciate all the support as I'm trying to grow into a full-time artist. All right, let's get to the waterfall. I'm gonna start here with a 4H pencil, just loosely adding some lighter value directional lines, showing the flow of our water. I start off soft here so I can layer darker values on top. So some of these initial lines will get covered up and erased as I finesse later on. That's why I can stay loose without worrying about messing anything up. I'm making a little more complicated waterfall with some cascading drips on the right side here, and then a smaller waterfall up top as well. If this is your first waterfall drawing, you might wanna start with something easier, and I would highly recommend a reference photo to help with texture and for inspiration. So as the water is churning over a cliff on a waterfall, it's usually whitewater. So our water here is mostly made up of highlights and lighter values. At the bottom of our waterfall, I'm gonna sketch in our splashdown area, and I'm making sure to have these lines radiating out in the direction which they would flow out from here. Now I'm gonna layer in some darker values throughout with a 2B pencil. Let's think about what is causing these darker values in our water. Usually these are caused for two different reasons. Reason number one is the different layers in the water. As the water falls, some of that water is out front, and that's gonna cast a shadow on the layers behind it. And the other reason is because of the rocks. They can either be protruding through the water or where some of that water is transparent, and you're seeing some of those rocks, darker tones behind the waterfall. So those are the two factors I'm thinking about as I get darker with my 2B pencil. I'm using a finer 2B mechanical pencil over here on the right where I'm having the water cascade down so I can draw this section more detailed. I'm also adding these real dark spots where the rocks are protruding from our cliff wall, which causes the water to hit the top of these rocks and then break off to the different sides. I'm still kind of in the mapping and sketching out phase here so I'm staying a little rough at this point, but I can also see I'm a little too dark in spots so I'll need to do some finessing with my eraser later. Directional lines are the key with all these little cascades. Make sure you pay attention to how you draw the flow of your water. If it hits a rock, think about how that will affect the water flow. I have a little bit of our rocky cliff here to fill in to connect it with our waterfall. Now up on this top waterfall, I'm switching to a slightly lighter HB pencil, but more importantly, I'm switching to a pencil with 0.3 millimeter lead as opposed to the 0.5 millimeter lead I was using on the waterfall below. This gives us slightly thinner, finer lines and that perspective that this waterfall is just a little bit further away. Now I wouldn't call this 100% necessary to do if you can't, but it can be a nice touch and it's something to think about. But other than that, it's just the same idea. Draw in the flow of your water using directional lines. The right side of this waterfall, I have some more darker values. So that's representing more rocks and shadows. And that's because that side also has the cascades trickling down. If there was a heavy water flow over on that side, the water most likely wouldn't be cascading. It would be a full flowing waterfall. Pay attention to little details like this. A big part of getting better at drawing is not just about practicing sketching, but it's also learning how to see and interpret your scenes better. Now I'm gonna go back in and start finessing here. Shading in where I want more rocks to show through and thinner threads of water, particularly over here on the right where the flow of water is lighter. I'm also adding some more shadow and depth on our other waterfalls as well to make it more visually interesting. Throughout this entire process, try to keep your lines wild and organic so the water has a natural feeling. Staying loose, not getting too caught up and analyzing every line is a great way to do that. This refining stage is really up to you how far you wanna take it. Is the waterfall you're drawing a really turbulent and chaotic one? Then it's probably mostly highlights. Is it more of a stream trickling down? Then it's probably got a lot more shadows and rock showing through. I'm gonna erase some highlights back in with this Factus BM2 eraser. I like to cut it to an angle with my X-Acto blade and then carve thin highlights back in. I'm varying my pressure here as well so there is some variety in my erasing. I use this technique of erasing highlights back in a lot because the variety that it adds can often make things feel more natural and organic. Let's pop in a little bit closer here as I finesse the cascades. So on these cascades, I wanna add some more highlights back to the top where the water is splashing on the rock and then cresting over the sides. I'm using that same Factus eraser to add highlights back in. And here, I'm making sure to get more accurate with my lines for the little trails of water dripping down. Okay, so finishing up the bottom of my waterfall here, I'm taking my electric eraser and cleaning it up, adding some little bumps and randomness to it. At the bottom of waterfalls, there's normally this cloud of whitewater churning and some mist, and it's mostly made up of highlights with just some very subtle shadows. I'm just outlining where that highlighted water will end. My outline here is hinting in the direction that the water will travel out in our little pool down here. Outside of that area, I'm layering in my 2B pencil, following that same water direction that we've established. I'm gonna darken this little splashdown area just a little bit more. Now in our pool down here, I'm gonna do the same thing with my 6B pencil. With this darker pencil, I'm making sure that the little nooks down here are the darkest areas. These little protected areas would have less disruption from the waterfall. Then let's give that a blend. I'm adding in some very subtle shadows in this highlight area with my 4H pencil. I just wanna give it a smidge of texture here. And now that same trick with the factus eraser. Slice it to a sharp tip and add in some ripples of highlights down here in the water. Notice I'm focusing most of the erasing straight down from our waterfall because that's where the waterfall's highlights would be reflecting in the water below. And so from here, it's just using these same techniques and finessing your drawing until you're happy with the way it looks. And there you go. There is your waterfall. Drop any questions you have down in the comments. And also let me know how your waterfall turned out. See you next time.