Pencil Drawing Lesson Boat On A Shore

Hi friends, Phil here and in this video I'm going to be taking you through an in-depth step-by-step pencil drawing class for this boat on ashore. Now this is one of my oldest ever lessons in fact I think this was the first ever lesson that I filmed for Art Tutor way back in 2014 and the reason that I'm putting it on YouTube now is because well sadly Art Tutor is going to be closing its virtual doors very soon. The YouTube channel however, the Art Tutor YouTube channel isn't going to go anywhere and the plan is for me to release all of my kind of premium Art Tutor content, the classes and the courses for free on this channel over the coming weeks and months. Better that than just letting them disappear into the ether when Art Tutor comes to an end. I have just renamed this channel you may have noticed to Draw Awesome and that's just a new drawing program that I'm developing at the moment, a new venture and its name is Draw Awesome so if you're interested in that maybe you can go and check it out. But in terms of the free drawing tutorials I'm going to be putting on a ton of really in-depth content on this channel covering lots of different mediums, pencil drawing, ink drawing, coloured pencils, charcoal, pastel pencils, lots of different subjects as well. So maybe consider subscribing to this YouTube channel if you haven't already and if you set YouTube to send you a notification you're going to be the first to know when I release a free new lesson. All right so this particular pencil drawing class even though it is over eight years old now is full of tips and techniques that are just as relevant today as they were back in 2014. In fact most drawing principles have been around for hundreds of years they don't go out of fashion and remember that learning to draw like most skills isn't about learning some fancy new method it's about understanding a few key principles and then practicing those principles as much as you can. Now this lesson is suitable for beginners, even complete beginners and the drawings that you see on screen now they are from some of the students who have completed this drawing on our tutor over the years. They were beginners too and I think the results are pretty darn good hopefully they'll give you some confidence of what is achievable. Now you'll need about an hour to watch this lesson in full and then I'd say about another hour or so to complete your drawing. But my advice is that you actually try to draw along with me as best you can so maybe watch a few minutes of the video then pause it and catch up and watch a little bit more of the video pause it and catch up and so on. And if you take that approach it's going to take you about two hours in total but you don't have to do that in one session or one sitting there's no reason why you can't break that up into half hour chunks or a couple of hour chunks and you can even split it up over a couple of days as well if you wanted to. If you look in the description beneath this video you'll find the links to download the reference photographs that I use plus a materials list as well which to be honest isn't really a list it's that simple. And I've also added some chapter markers for anyone who wants to skip through the lesson a little bit more quickly. All right so that's enough rambling from me let's make a start on this class and if you do enjoy it please consider giving this video a thumbs up it really does help and leaving a comment as well below just to let me know what you think. So this is the coloured reference photograph that I've got here and I'm actually going to work from a black and white reference because that's going to allow you at home and me to more easily compare the values and the tones as we progress through the drawing. Now there's a number of reasons why I really like this particular reference and why I think it's a great subject to learn from. Firstly you've got a nice variety of textures going on within this one scene you've got the relatively calm and flat water but then you've also got the reflection here with the broken indication of ripples. So we'll see how to deal with that and then compare the flat calmness of the water with this really busy and detailed beachfront. So we're going to have to simplify that but without making it so abstract that the viewer is confused as to what it actually is meant to be. We've got some nice details and textures going on the boat itself and although I wouldn't call this a really strong sunny day there's definitely some nice shadow shapes going on that we can work with you know as an artist shadows strong shadows make your life that much easier. So what else is going on in this image? Well we've got a really nice range of values. So at one end of the scale we've got this area here in the upper left of the sky and this area in the boat here which are almost completely white and then at the other end of the scale you've got these very dark areas within the boat here and this dark shadow where the boat meets the beach. So my range of values goes from almost completely white to almost completely black. Now if I don't go dark enough in those areas my drawing certainly isn't going to have the same punch and impact that the reference photo does. Now if values are something that you struggle to see you could use a value scale. We talked about a value scale in the Drawing Essentials course but I think you've actually got a value scale almost built within this image. So if you look at the sky and then this first outcrop and then this next outcrop and then the next one that's almost a perfect scale from a light value through to a mid-range and really you'd only need a couple of dark values and you've got your value scale there. So you can certainly use these areas to compare other parts of the image as you progress through that image. Now before we make a start on the drawing there's a few things that I just want to mention about composition. So the boat is the obvious focal point nothing else in this image competes with it so straight away you've got the basis for a nice strong composition. And why is it an obvious focal point? Well firstly there's greater contrast so light lightest lights and darkest darks within this shape than there is anywhere else on the image. So this is the darkest dark this is the lightest light. You've got a light a very light light in the paddle here and a darkest dark within the shadows of the boat. There's more detail and more texture within this shape than anywhere else. The detail and texture here is more crisp more defined than it is in the rest of the image. And look at the boat's position as well so you know we mentioned about the principles of thirds in the composition course. We've got this boat which is right on the intersection of those thirds certainly this this crosshair on the boat here right on that intersection of the thirds. And it also makes use of strong diagonal lines and this is something that I didn't mention in the composition course but strong diagonals are very attention grabbing. So you've got a strong diagonal here and a strong diagonal line there and that crosshair of the boat really pulls your eye towards it. And then I also like the way the beach is about a third of the way up the image and the horizon line is about a third of the way down the image so you haven't got any lines that are cutting things right through the middle. And then I would say it's a nicely balanced composition as well so if you just defocus your eyes you've got this nice dark area here you've got this mass of the boat and the shadow here and that's counterbalanced with the land mass and the dark shapes that are up in this top right hand corner as well. Now there is one thing that I'd like to play about with and to test before I commit to this exact composition and that is to lean the boat the opposite way. So if you remember back to the composition course if you've seen that course one of the lessons talks about leading lines and how you can use leading lines to control the direction of the viewer's gaze. So you've got this strong diagonal line which is pointing out of the image and towards this area of breathing space where there's not a lot of interest. Same with these two lines as well. Would it be a significant improvement compositionally if the boat leaned into the image so everything was pointing this way? Well to test this theory what I did was I created two very quick thumbnail sketches. So these were created with a charcoal pencil. They took about five minutes each probably less than that and it just allowed me to get a very quick feel for whether it was going to work compositionally having the boat point inwards. And to help me create this drawing what I did on the computer was I just flipped the original reference photograph the other way around. So very easy to do flip horizontal is what it's called and now the boat is on the right hand side but it's got the lean that I want. So I was able to go back to the original photograph. I was able to copy the background the environment from this one and the boat from this one and place it in. And I ended up with these two sketches as a comparison. Now of course with the flip version you've got the extra challenge that all the shadow shapes are going to change. So because the inside of this boat is now leaning into the light and this arrow is indicating the light source more of the inside of the boat is going to be lit up. So this shadow here is going to be shorter and much less pronounced than the shadow shape in this boat. And you know this is where the shading basic shapes exercise in the Drawing Essentials course this is where that exercise comes in really handy. Because if you can understand how light and shadow hits a basic cube or cylinder or a sphere you can then transfer it to an object like a boat so that when you've got a to make up the light and shadow it's that much easier. So compositionally then which one do you prefer? Personally I think this one is an improvement on the original reference photograph. This one's leading my eye towards the interest of the cliffs. This one is leading my eye towards an empty horizon. I could possibly put something on the horizon a small boat maybe just to stop the eye from leaving the picture. But I like that breathing space I think that adds to the image. So compositionally I prefer this one. Now what I don't like as much about the one on the right are the shadow shapes within the boat. So this one here because it has stronger shadow shapes I think it makes it a stronger focal point. I also think it feels more balanced with the cliffs in the top right hand corner than this one does. So maybe there's something that we can play about with use a bit of artistic license just to add some darker shapes within the boat just to help redress that balance. I could potentially start messing around so I could have this one here but bring the light from this area and in that way we're going to get those longer shadows back in the boat. But then we've got the issue of a large shadow right in the middle of the image and I think it's more balanced on the left hand side. So overall you know I think you could choose either one and make a valid argument that it's the best composition. I'm going to stick with this one for this particular lesson. What I suggest is that if you are a little bit more confident a bit more advanced with your drawing then follow along with me with this modified composition. There are more things to think about it does take a little bit more planning through as you refer into the reference photograph but it's an interesting challenge. If you're a bit more of a newcomer maybe a little bit less confident with your drawing skills then stick to the original composition from the reference photograph. All of the techniques that I go through from a shading point of view are going to be exactly the same irrespective of which composition you choose. Quick run through the materials. So the paper I'm using is Strathmore Bristol Vellum. It's got a smooth surface, got quite a bit of weight to it but to be honest any sketching or drawing paper absolutely fine. Just avoid using photocopier or printer paper. The pencils that I'm using are a mix of Caran d'Ache and Faber-Castell. I've got a H, a 2B, a 4B and a 9B and then I've got the leftover of a kneadable eraser but this is ideal it's nice and pliable. Going to get it to a nice easy point we'll be making plenty of use of that and craft knife just to keep pencils nice and sharp. Now the only other thing that you might want to use is a piece of greaseproof paper or indeed photocopier paper just to protect your surface as you work on it. Just protects the natural greases in your hands from transferring to the paper because they can interfere with your shading. I'm not going to use that within this lesson simply because it starts to get a little bit fiddly and it also might obscure parts of the drawing that I'm working on so you can't see them. And then you've probably noticed that I have behind these bits of equipment I've drawn out a frame on the paper already and this has got the exact dimensions so width to height as the reference photograph but it's just quite a bit smaller and the reason that I'm drawing smaller than the reference photograph is simply because a drawing of this nature quite a bit of detail and shading going on takes time there's no getting away from that. So rather than sending you to sleep on a huge image keeping it small so we can keep the pace nice and quick. If you remember back to the Drawing Essentials course the reason for using a frame like this is that it just helps to plot out those initial marks a little bit more easily. Okay so I think it's time we made a start. So I've set things up to make it as easy as possible for you to follow along with my thought processes. We've got the modified reference photograph here on the left hand side with the boat leaning in that's going to be here in our image and then on the right hand side is the original reference photograph. Now the first thing that I like to do with a scene like this is to establish the basic environment and we're going to take that from this reference here. So horizon is around about a third of the way down so we can just put that in very roughly for now and then the beach again is about a third of the way up it's got a bit of a curve to it so I can indicate that slightly so it's going to be somewhere in this region here. Now don't worry if that horizon line is not straight we can tidy that up later on. So the next marker that I want to get in is this outcrop here. So how far across is this outcrop or what is this distance relative to the overall picture and I would say it's probably a little bit more than a quarter less than a third around about the quarter mark so it's going to be somewhere in and around about this region here and then very simply let's just take an angle up and leave the picture plane at around about that position there so somewhere in that region. You can measure the angle if you want to but for now very easy just to put that angle in. There we go. Now let's start looking at the boat so we're going to use this reference photograph on the left hand side and I'm going to look for this dominant angle that splits the boat in two. I'm going to measure that with the measure that a few times and then we can put that angle in there. I'm not concerned how long the line is I just want to establish the angle for now and then I can look at this cross section so I want to establish not just the angle but how high up the image do I want to take that and this would be easier if we were copying from this one because we could use reference points with the cliffs it's not so easy here but we can make an estimation. So an angle of around about there is going to be somewhere in that region and again I'm not worried about the length of the line I just want to establish the angle and now what about establishing the overall width of the boat I think that's that's an important next step. Again if we're working on the original reference photograph it's relatively easy we can take a vertical line down and see how far in that goes you know so we quite easily say it's there but because everything has been flipped around we can't really do that. Same for this side I could take a marker and say well this side is on line with the cliff so I could put that second cliff in which is a little bit on the halfway so maybe somewhere around there and I could say that that is the edge of the boat but again I can't really do that because we flip things around. So the way that I'm going to approach this is I'm going to look make an estimation for where the bottom of the boat is on this angle so I can see somewhere in that region there and then I'm going to mark in where the width is on this left hand side and then I can take an angle from there to there to establish that width so it's going to be somewhere in that region and that is our angle and I can do the same on this side so if I mark the outer edge there I can look at that angle there it's quite a lot flatter can copy that angle over I know that my outer edge is going to be somewhere in that region and we don't have to be exact you know it's not the subject matter doesn't require that we need to be precise we can make further refinements as we go along if it doesn't look right to our eye and then what about the overall depth or height of the boat so from this point here to the back edge there but what I could do is I could use a comparative measure so I could say what is this distance from here to here relative to this distance and to me it looks around about it would be about a third of the length maybe a little bit more than a third so we could use that to give us ourselves a rough estimation so one two three so it's going to be somewhere in the region around about there just check the angle parallel to this front line of course put that in for now and the other measure that I can use is just to look at the distance between the outcrop the furthest most outcrop and how much sea is in between that and the edge of this boat so I know that I need a little bit more distance so maybe that line is a touch high it needs to be a little bit further down here okay so we've got some really solid basic markers in now the next step is to just put in some basic shapes so we don't want to focus on detail particularly on the boat just yet we just want to establish the overall big shapes of the boat so I can double check lines as I'm going along I don't need to worry too much about curves at this stage I might want to put a small indication of the curve in keeping it nice and light I'd like to go a little bit heavier so you can see it easier on camera but I'm sure you'll be able to see this without straining your eyes too much and you can start to add some of these curves as well but again not too much detail at this stage so look at how this curves around what how does that curve same with this one this is less of a curve isn't it so got a sharper edge there and then for the center of the boat I'm going to look at this line here because this splits the center of the boat in two so we've got the back edge there and then this distance here we split that in two that gives us that line there which it looks like it's the edge of the seat and again at this stage it's just a rough indication and then let's just put these cliffs in so this one is about a little bit less than a third of the way across so maybe that region there and goes right up to the top corner comes down slightly below the horizon line and then the next one is ever so slightly above the horizon line so that's our major outline drawing established what I'm going to do now is I'm going to erase things back neaten everything up a little bit and then we'll come back in and I just want to make a quick mention about how we deal with the shadow shapes that we're going to have to basically make up with inside the boat okay so I have erased my initial marks and I've replaced them with more careful more refined marks and I actually spent quite a bit of time on the boat probably a good 20 minutes 25 minutes just establishing the lines particularly the details within the boat but the lines particularly on the top edge and you'll see what I mean when I when you come to draw this yourself these lines feel as though they're running into one another in places and they can be a little bit confusing so do take your time and make sure that those marks you're happy with those marks so that when you come to shade them you're not starting with lines that are incorrect in the first place now in terms of shading there's one of two approaches that we can take to this the first approach is to pick a particular area and then focus on that in its entirety so really work it up in some nice detail until it's complete so we could start with the boat for example fill in all the details then move on to the cliffs do all the details and texture on there then the beach and so on that's not necessarily the most efficient way to approach it and certainly not for a newcomer or somebody that struggles maybe with their drawing a little bit but it's the way that I would approach it because that's what I find most enjoyable and that's the most important thing at the end of the day the second approach that we can take is to build the drawing up more like a watercolorist or an oil painter would build their painting up so we could start by blocking in major values so a value for this cliff here one for this one and here the major areas on the boat but no detail just bringing up those value shapes those value blocks and then going back to those areas and refining adding extra detail in adding the subtle nuances that represent texture the advantage that this approach gives you is that it's much easier to see the major value shapes and how they compare to one another and you know I think you're much more likely to create a better overall rendering if perhaps you're a newcomer or somebody that struggled in the past with the drawing if you take the approach of building things up with major blocks of value and then adding the detail later on so that's the approach that we're going to take in this lesson because I think the result is more important than the process initially once you've got the confidence of some good results behind you then you can start to play about and experiment with the process and find one that you really enjoy now I'm going to lose this photo for the rest of this drawing I'm going to take all of my reference from this one and the reason for that is that I think it's easier to transfer the information that's in this side of the boat to this side albeit it's two different sides because this is in the light this is the same side sure but because it's in shadow I think it's more difficult for us to translate that into our drawing so we're going to drop this one and stick to this one so the first value that I'm going to block in the first area is this furthest outcrop here you can see it's a nice light value it's not much stronger than the sky and the water before I do block it in though I want to erase this outline back a little bit and the reason for that is that this is a stronger value than I want my overall value to be so I don't erase it back it's going to look outlined and we want to avoid outlines wherever possible in our drawings and then I'm not worried about detail so not at this stage there are some details some subtle details in the reference photograph and we can add those in later on just a hint of them but for now I'm using the H pencil and I just want to block that in with a really light value and then for the next outcrop the next cliff face it's a stronger value a much stronger value so I'm going to switch to a 2B and I'm going to block this in again avoiding any detail now one tip is that maybe go a little bit lighter a value or two lighter than what you think it would be overall because what that does is it allows you to add darker details later on because it's easier to add darker details than it is to erase them and this shape up here and just notice how I'm leaving slight areas of the paper white just for now just to distinguish one shape from another because I might be able to make use of those well I hope to be able to make use of those when we come back and add some details later on and then this outcrop is a much stronger value I've switched to a 4B you could probably get away with a 2B but I don't want to use too much pressure so 4B just makes it a little bit easier for me and in terms of the mark making I'm just trying to think about the shape and the formations within the so I'm not doing horizontal shading this one was more of an angled shading this one is more vertical shading varying the mark slightly and I don't know if you can see this thin line through there whether that shows up on camera so that's where I've scored the paper when I drew in my horizon line I drew it in with a ruler and then I have erased it back but of course because it's indented the paper it's now the line is now showing up but so those values are much lighter than I want them to be in the final drawing so you can see how much lighter this value is compared to this one this one's probably not too far off but having them lighter allows me as I say to add some details some darker details and bring them up later on so let's move on to the boat and start establishing some of the major value shapes and those cast shadows remember we've got to think about where these cast shadows fall because they don't actually exist in reality these shadows are going to be different to ours so let's start blocking those in for now we're not worried about detail at this stage we just want to get some overall value shapes blocked in so the first one I'm going to start with is the easiest one we can get that out the way and it's this major shadow shape down here I want to stick to the 4b pencil even though at some point later on I'm going to come back with a 9b a 4b at this stage allows me to get in a nice dark shape but does give me some room to go darker and so add a bit of texture I'm not sure how this shadow is going to fall I think we might have to make something up here we could go back to our thumbnail sketch to see how we approached it there but for now let's just leave it at that let's address this side of the boat now so we know that in the reference it's lighter isn't it you can certainly distinguish this area against this area I think this value is probably going to be about what this should be but we can just make it lighter for now we're just helping to establish the differences between different areas in our mind and I can go right over these areas I might want to give just leave some white space between just so that I've got an indication of where they are because I did spend quite a bit of time drawing them out getting them in position and then the front of the this front angle here certainly the left hand side is going to be the shadow if it helps you you know put an arrow up just as it will act as a reminder just outside of your picture plane to remind you which direction the light is coming from and now this side is in the light isn't it so I'm not going to add any value for now I think we can add a little bit of value later on but for now I'm going to leave it as the white of the paper this bottom part of the boat we can add some value in there and then if we think about any shadow shapes that would be cast onto the ground underneath the boat the sun is coming from this direction here I would say this area here is going to be in shadow so we can add an area there and that just helps to establish the bottom edge of the boat and take it round into this shadow here you can imagine just as the boat curves away that would block the sun from hitting the ground certainly in that area there you don't have to be exact because nobody's going to know and then look at this cast shadow here that's another value that we can get in and it's darker than this one here so 2B pencil place that one in and then this one is slightly lighter and it gets lighter towards the right hand side as it curves around and is more in the sun so this is obviously going to be a stronger value than this one because it's more in the shade you can bring that one up and then back to the 4B I've got some really dark value just inside this part of the boat so I've not put that line in just to indicate the edge of the seat so we can put that dark value in you could go as dark as you like here but we'll bring that up darker later on and now let's think about the cast shadow that would be made inside this area of the boat here it's going to be different to our reference photograph this is going to be a longer shadow because the sunlight is hitting this side of the boat that is angled away so it's cast on a long shadow this is going to be a much shorter shadow but if you imagine that the shape of the shadow the outer edge is going to be the same shape as this is it going to be here here here I would suggest and we don't we don't know we can make it up so I would suggest somewhere around that area so I'm going to do an indication of a curve and then falling across there and now we can see that all of this area including the two oars is going to be in shadow this top edge is going to be in light so we can leave that so let's take our 2B pencil and let's block that in all as one shape I'm actually just going to go around the oars because I think it'd be nice to keep those in as a little bit of detail and being white they would stand out against the rest of the area in shadow back to the H pencil let's just add a touch of value on the top of the seat and then this area is going to be quite light as well this is even though this is dark tarpaulin when it's in the light look how light it is this value here is really light isn't it it's as light almost as somewhere around there so we can afford to keep that quite light in that area and this area quite light as well maybe darkens off slightly towards the back end of the boat there and I think for now that will do for the boat I think we can move on and start blocking in the major value for the for the beach now the way that I'm going to do this is to use side of the pencil so I can block it in quite quickly this is the H pencil and I'm keeping it quite light quite a bit lighter than again what is in the reference photograph because that way I can pick up darker values with the bits and pieces that make up the texture of the beach because you can imagine how difficult it would be how awkward it would be trying to pick out lots of little lighter areas with a kneadable eraser you can certainly you can certainly do it that way but I think it would be easier just to add the darkest darks and these are our lightest lights now for the water or the reflection in the water I'm actually going to leave this and the reason is that there is some as you can see the ripples are represented by almost white value and if I block this it means same with the beach it means we're going in with an eraser trying to erase things out which sometimes you can't always erase back to the white of the paper so we'll address this right at the end and we'll go straight in with a really dark value and we'll leave those white bits to show the representation of the ripples so at this stage it's looking fairly nondescript fairly washed out but what we have done is we've got rid of a lot of the intimidating white of the paper so now I think it's a good time to start establishing some of your darkest darks so I've got a 9b pencil and I'm going to work on this shadow area here and I'm just going to add in as dark as I can go without breaking the pencil particularly towards where the boat meets the beach and I'm not worried about going over and into the boat because it all melds into one as you get further left you can reduce the pressure slightly dance the pencil round just to give an indication that there is some sort of interesting texture there but certainly as you get close to the boat it's going to be so dark that you're not going to be able to distinguish anything and then 4b pencil let's establish this part of the hull of the boat on this side so where it meets the shadow it's going to be as dark you're not going to be able to distinguish it and then you can maybe reduce the pressure slightly as you get towards a bit further away from the shadow and now imagine this side of the hull as a basic sphere shape so it's darkest on the outside edge almost a dark line on the outside edge gradually getting softer and lighter as it reaches this centre portion here and it really is no different to a sphere so if you've done that sphere drawing exercise that's when it's going to come in handy so I'm just going to establish that outside line that can be as dark as I like and this is the 4b pencil and then I'm going to work across just because that is the shape of the hull put more pressure on the outside and then gradually softening off as I get towards the centre of the boat and then we can also establish I've got a nice sharp point on the end of this pencil so I can establish the shadow line underneath that detail at the top of the it's all going to get lost in this area make sure that you blend all of that in there and then I think we can put in a shadow shape down here down this side can't we because if the light is hitting it's going to cast a shadow because there is some height to this front beam so it would cast a shadow onto this side of the boat it just helps to establish that line so with any shadow it's darkest towards the near edge and then gradually softens off and let's just bring up the value down this bottom part of the boat to keep consistent this is really dark but I am going to leave if you can see just the slightest slither just so you can distinguish that shape so let's deal with this area here this is quite an important area because this is the real focal point this cross section there's a real strong focal point within the whole image so I think of out of anywhere this is where you want to be more precise and a bit more neat we can get looser further away and we want to get looser further away but around this area we do want to keep our lines quite tight and quite crisp so if you need to sharpen your pencil let's add some stronger value into there so we know that this value is this or this color is the same as this one but this is going to be darker because it's in the shadow so let's bring up we look at it here let's bring up the value to around about that I want to go darker there and maybe lighter as I get towards here there's going to be more reflected light around here because it's closer to the light source and then I don't know if you can see but I think it's worth establishing now there's a nice dark thin very thin line that just establishes this this detail here this rim from this part of the boat so you do want a really sharp pencil now it might be worth going to the 2B because that will give you a sharper point than a 4B and then you can establish that line so it's nice and crisp nice and neat and then don't forget this rim here is the same value it's white the same as this but there is some curve to this so if I just draw it enlarged here rather than just shading it in as one complete value it's going to be darker towards the bottom now back to our cylinder shape and then lighter towards the top and that's what I'm observing within this it's only a subtle detail but if you want to create a fairly realistic pencil drawing these are the subtleties that you've got to look for and that you've got to be able to render so and then because this here is the furthest away from the light source you wouldn't be able to distinguish any details between them even though this is brown and this is white so you can afford to just go over that area and blend it all in almost as one value so how about we establish some of the darks the darkest values within the boat itself I said before didn't I that in the intro that I wasn't going to use anything to protect my hand but because there's quite a lot of value down there I've got a small piece of greaseproof paper and that's just going to stop things from smudging too much so back to the 9B we can go as dark as we want to within this area dark as the pencil will allow and then if you look at the shadow in this side of the boat you can see it's not quite as dark as this area here but it is very dark so we can afford to go in with say a 4B bring this shadow area up quite a lot and we don't need to worry too much about the details within there because the shadow is going to obliterate most of those and the shadow on the seat I'm going to do a little bit lighter so just so I can see a distinction between this value and this value and again it all just helps to establish the shape the overall shape and the form and then this can be a nice crisp line if you remember from our thumbnail sketches if I can bring those in quickly that this thumbnail sketch here had more darks on it and so it was maybe a little bit more balanced than this one so I'm just looking for any areas around here that I can establish a dark and if we look on our reference photograph if you can see where the tarpaulin is stretched there's an area that you can see within the tarpaulin that no light would be able to get to even if it was on this side of the boat which it is so I'm going to establish that dark and it gives me a nice opportunity to create a nice dark in there there's a bit of detail here this piece here that we can add in this piece at the bottom of the handle so we can add that in because it's lacking interest on that side I think and of course we've got to make this quite dark this top edge because it's in the shadow side and you can see it's not quite as dark as this value this top part here is darker isn't it so it's white here dark down here and that's a darker value so just distinguish that slightly and then there would be a shadow just inside there a little cast shadow same on this portion and then we can add this little bit of detail on because it gives us another opportunity to add some nice shadow I'm not actually going to draw the shape in of whatever that is I'm just going to use a shadow shape to distinguish that so I'm just going to add a little shadow just on the side of this one because this would be cast this is the edge of the boat just here that I don't want to put in as a line because it's in the light so I don't want to outline it but I can put in a shadow just on that edge where it would be hitting the boat and we can come back and add some details to this just to add some interest same with the tarpaulin we can add some folds and things like that when we come back to that but for now I think we're going to move on from the boat because really all it needs is some texture and detail let's add some texture and detail into the cliff faces then so a bit of greaseproof paper just to protect what we've done this first one here I'm back on the H pencil and as you can see from the reference photograph there's very little texture there's some subtle indications of what looks like maybe villas or lighthouses somewhere in the background but I want to keep this and give an indication but I want to keep this quite a smooth texture so I want to try and move remove any textural marks that the pencil has made to keep it quite smooth and flat and then I can just add just increasing the pencil pressure just add the hint of texture just to break up that one solid shape but there shouldn't be a lot of contrast between the lights and the darks so you can see I no longer have any kind of an outline around this there's what are called lost and found edges so there's a lost edge there where it's fairly indistinguishable as an edge and that's exactly the kind of thing that you would expect to see in something so far away and then 2B pencil now I can start to add some more textural marks on the cliff on this cliff here and I can start to get a little bit more detailed so I can look for patterns of light and dark and I don't obviously need to represent those exactly but what I am seeing is that all of the dark all of the lines here or the marks here look fairly linear certainly darker towards the bottom where it reaches the water darker areas around there and then it goes quite a bit darker as it reaches this landmass here but I mean you don't once you get a feel for this you don't really need to look at the reference at all you can start to make things up and have a play about with it look at it at first and try and replicate what you see when you get that feel for it you can then just start to start make things up really I'm going to keep a light edge just here I don't know if you can see it looks like the sunlight's catching the top of the trees there I think that's a nice little adds a bit of interest and we do want to have a bit of interest in this area of the picture because the reason for changing the composition is so that this line leads us to look around this area so it's nice to give the viewer some little nuggets of interest to look at and it looks like there's some trees on the top there so you can add an indication of those just rough up the edges slightly and then I mentioned earlier about how we've got this line going through that was where the pencil had scored so all you need to do to get rid of that is hold the pencil vertical nice sharp points on the end and then you can just gradually work along the line and fill fill that lining with graphite you do need a really sharp point so it might be best to use a pencil sharpener as opposed to a as a craft knife and then you can just blend that in you haven't got that harsh line and then for this one I'm going to go to same technique again dancing the pencil around looking for some major patterns at first and then when I've got a feel for it I can just start to make it up and have some fun while we're in this area let's address these reflections in the water so I said earlier that we didn't want to block this in with one solid value because there's so many ripples that are represented by the white of the paper so what I'm going to do is first of all I'm just going to spend a few minutes or a little bit of time looking at the shapes within this and the values within this so I can see that this area here is darker the values there are darker than this one and that makes sense because this darker outcrop is being reflected here this lighter one here and then also the ripples are few and far between in this area there's more subtlety more complexity going on in this area but when we get to this area here there's quite a bit of detail but the ripples are further apart so I can make a start by adding some solid value around this area here where there aren't too many well there are no ripples without worrying too much so this is a 2B pencil could probably actually afford to go to a 4B because that's quite dark saves going over everything again and what I do want to do right throughout this is make sure that my lines are nice and my marks are nice and horizontal and then as I get further down I'm just going to start to leave more white spaces more than I will do eventually because I can go back over and fill those in quite strong value remember this is a dark value here there's an area that I can block in there that's very little ripples in and then if we look at this wave here this gentle wave that's coming across this is quite an important one so all I'm going to do is just look at the shape of that should probably sharpen the pencil a little bit more than I have for this one but would be okay and I'm just looking at how that pattern moves how that pattern appears to be that pattern of value and then I'm just looking here how it breaks away keeping the lines horizontal all the time so I'm not tempted to follow the shoreline and make marks that are at this angle I've got to keep them horizontal perfectly horizontal obviously you're never going to get this exact you don't need to but you're just getting a feel for the way that the shapes are represented bring up this value if you need to that's really dark there almost as dark as the cliff face and then I'm going to switch to the 2B pencil and do much the same thing here now this has got a lot more detail going on a lot more lines so all I'm going to do is just make horizontal lines that I can then fill in between I just want to make sure that I leave myself enough white space to work with I don't obliterate too much of the paper so look at the edge there that's quite a straight edge there so we can afford to go quite uniform there and then as it gets to this area it starts to break up can definitely help by defocusing your eyes because it just takes some of the overwhelming complexity out of the out of the equation and when I defocus my eyes I can see darker areas within you know the lighter area here so it's just a case of stepping back definitely stepping back definitely defocusing your eyes looking for darker areas looking for lighter areas and leaving those areas lighter and having a nice sharp pencil definitely helps if you do feel at any point that you've taken out too much of the white you take your kneadable eraser and then knead it to an edge so a chiseled edge and then you can just go over again keep your line horizontal you will take out too much but if you then go back in with your H pencil so nice and sharp you'll then be able to just define that line a little bit more clearly again I think we should go back to the boat now and start adding the detail and texture and working that up in full so the first area I'm going to concentrate on is this here so at the minute it's one solid white mass and you can see from the reference photograph there's some some shade and some value around here and it's this bottom edge that is the lightest so we think about where the sunlight is coming from this area is going to be slightly darker it's going to be some value there I'd say this area is the lightest maybe around here maybe all the way around this area but we can certainly put some value in there and then I want to put just a nice subtle indication of some of the wooden panels in as well so lightest pressure I possibly can with the side of a H pencil easing the pressure off as I get round to this side of the boat so slightly more pressure here in this top corner thinking about all the time where the light can and can't get to I want to get a definite distinction between this value here and the value of this edge here without having to outline it we can bring up the value of this shadow and there's going to be going to be darker just underneath that ridge and then let's put some subtle indication very subtle broken lines of some panels now you can afford to go slightly heavier here and then as you get into the light that line will just disappear so it's obliterated by the strong light source stronger here soft until it disappears stronger and then disappears and just to break up the uniformity of that line just dance the pencil over some darker areas lighter areas just to indicate that it isn't this is wood after all so it's not a perfectly straight line maybe get a but definitely want to give the impression that just as how everything here in shadow gets lost everything here in the lightest light also gets lost there's no distinguishing features so just dabbing with the kneadable eraser just to soften all of that area so that it becomes what's called a lost edge and then you probably can't see them on camera but there's some rivets some bolts just along the edge of the boat and i think that'll be a nice bit of detail so i've got a 2b pencil nice and sharp so again they're going to be darker here using a bit more pressure as you get to this side lighten the value off until around here you can't really distinguish them and then what about some texture some rust on this side we've definitely got some nice rust texture on the front of the boat there so we can add those in on this side though let's keep it quite light so 2b because remember it's all of this side is in the light all i'm going to do is just dance the pencil around but it's only a light pressure i don't want too much contrast here because the light is scorching everything so it it gets rid of any of that harsh contrast you can go darker with that shadow get the 9b and just right inside the edge there is where it's darkest and then it's going to soften the h so i can get a really sharp line and i can define that line because there'll always be the slightest what's called an occlusion shadow the light can't get to the boat is touching the beach i'm just softening the underside of the boat there because it curves away doesn't it towards the ground so it's going to be slightly darker and then with the 4b let's just add some of these rust patterns so this is a case of just dancing the pencil trying not to make them too uniform i'm not using really strong pressure here it's a moderate pressure i'm just creating a shape and then within that shape adding maybe some extra pressure just so that it's not one solid black mark or splodge and i think we can afford to put a bit of texture on this side of the boat as well so we can maybe put those uh same wooden panel patterns in only subtle only very subtle and then it is going to be an old boat so you can just break up the shape with a bit of texture just dancing the pencil around and then the inside of the boat now needs a little bit of work so i think we can definitely bring up the value of this seat if you look in the reference um this area here this is in light so this area here is still very dark and there's some texture in there so i think we can afford to go quite a bit darker so this is the 2b here and it's not a solid shape there's some patterns of dark and light sorry it's not a solid value there are some patterns of dark and light in there just being careful around this shape i just want to define that nice and neatly and then with the 2b pencil let's add some texture to this uh seat portion here so so just dancing the pencil around again just to add some textural elements within that and then we can add a few folds to what looks like tarpaulin here so there are some folds and creases where the light wouldn't get into nothing too dark an impression of what might be a fold no sharp hard edges everything blended in and you can pick out some areas next to the next to where you've indicated creases just pick out some areas only very subtle and then it just needs a bit of texture a few darks a bit of detail around this area here you can almost make this up when you get to this stage and then to finish the detailing and texture into these paddles now even though they're white they are going to be in shadow so they're quite dark so straight away 2b i'm just going to go over the entire shapes they'll still stand out and then if you think about which areas will be darker well if they're all in shadow it's going to be difficult to see the shape from them but there is going to be an separate in that one and then finally let's just address the beach area so this is quite a bitty quite a busy area in the picture and we want to simplify it but still show some texture we don't want to make it too abstract so the way that i'm going to approach that is i'm going to start with the 2b pencil and i'm just going to start to add bring the value start to add some value and bring the overall value up slightly especially where it's darker towards the edge of the beach now if you defocus your eyes you can see the major shapes of the values and it is definitely darker towards this beach edge here all i'm doing is just keeping the pencil very loose holding it towards the end and just starting to add some bits and pieces of texture okay so that's roughened it up a little bit it's added an extra layer so using now a bit more of it instead of the side of the 2b a bit more of the point of the 2b i want to just start to pick out some darker shapes so we've got quite a few of them around the beach edge so scruffy loose marks what you're aiming for obviously you don't need to be precise just looking for any areas that you can see that are darker value you can pick out so i'm going to make darker marks and more deliberate marks closer to the boat closer to the focal point and then i'm going to get fewer and far between as i get further away from the boat and this reed here or branch whatever it is this is pointing in this direction and it's only a small detail but what we can do is have that pointing in towards our image and it's just another another element that helps compositionally and then to finish off just pick out some light areas with a kneadable eraser always good to pick them out next to where you've put your shadows so there you go i think you get the idea with adding texture to the beach i could spend a lot longer on this if i had the time you can spend as long as you want to just building up those textures refining the different textures within the image as a whole do have a go this one it's a really good subject lots of interesting challenges especially if you decide to lean the boat to the opposite way definitely gives you more to think about it is more difficult but a really good subject to go for and i hope to see some of your efforts in the art tutor groups and let me know if you have any questions