Drawing And Framing A Picture of The Pinnacles

Today I have finished my drawing of the Pinnacles, which are magnificent hills filled with boulders. When I was young I grew up with a view of the Pinnacles, and I had wanted to draw a picture of these majestic hills for a very long time. Back in 2010 I sketched a close up picture of the boulders out at the Pinnacles, but recently I have yearned to capture the view of the Pinnacles from a distance. This illustration of the Pinnacles was created with pencil and colored pencils and it was quite entertaining to create. I can still visualize what the Pinnacles look like when I close my eyes, but using a reference photograph helped me to hone on some details I might have forgotten if I were just drawing this land-form from memory.

The video above illustrates what my drawing of the Pinnacles looked like when it was completed.

The drawing above is a sketch of the Pinnacles that I scanned. I like the scan my artwork so I can see more of the details of the illustration. Taking pictures of my sketches is useful for seeing how an illustration evolves from start to finish.

The picture above is the reference photograph of the Pinnacles that I am used for my sketch.

I continued to sketch until I was satisfied with the outline of the Pinnacles, which are a mountain range up in the San Bernardino Mountains.

During this phase of the sketch I am adding more boulders to the Pinnacles.

I decided to change some of the details of the sketch, such as erasing the telephone pole, and adding trees in its place. There are telephone poles in the original photograph, but I used my artistic license by adding a few more trees, and keeping the Pinnacles the primary focus of this sketch.

The dead tree is a bit fuzzy in this zoomed in photo, so I am simply using it as inspiration for drawing my dead tree. Actually, the trees I draw are much more based on where my imagination leads me rather than the exact location of each branch. If you ever look at trees each one is different, unlike the uniformity of a straight road or industrialized building. Dead trees like the one in the picture have character and different shapes, and you can use artistic license when drawing these magnificent, yet ghostly trees

In the picture above I am still drawing the boulders on the Pinnacles.

In this next drawing I have finished drawing the boulders on the Pinnacles. The reference photograph and my memory gave me inspiration as to where I placed the boulders. Some of the boulders on in the spots where they actually appear on the real Pinnacles, and some are simply drawn in to give the impression of these hills

I used beige and gray colored pencils to shade in the boulders on the Pinnacles.

I used a dark green colored pencil to color in the chaparral bushes around the boulders on the Pinnacles.

In the photo above I colored in the trees with a sienna colored pencil.

I blended chocolate brown and green together to create the ground near the base of the Pinnacles. Sienna brown was used to create a few lighter shades in the foreground area.

Above is a picture of my completed sketch of the Pinnacles. There was not a real barn in the actual photograph, but I decided to add a barn like structure rather than just having houses cluttering up the view.