Drawing A Picture of Waikiki Beach And the Pacific Ocean With Colored Pencils

Art is not for everyone, but I use my drawings, paintings, and photography as a way to reminiscence about some of the favorite places I have traveled to. Of course if my income allowed me to visit Waikiki once a year I would do that, but with my bills and rent I have not been able to go back for awhile. In 2002 I made a lovely trip to Oahu, and I truly enjoyed strolling along Waikiki Beach in the early hours of the morning before all the tourists converge upon its shores. I also recommend visiting some of the less touristy beaches on Oahu, but Waikiki can be fun, and the tourist vibe is not always as bad as people make it out to be. I truly enjoyed walking along Waikiki in the early morning and the evening hours when it was a little bit more desolate, and the vistas of Diamond Head in the background make for great photo opportunities. I decided to take one of my favorite photographs of Waikiki and use it as the inspiration for my latest art work. Below is what my framed Waikiki sketch looks like gracing one of the walls in my house.

So if traveling to a Waikiki resort is out of your vacation price range, you can always create beautiful art work by going through your old pictures you took in Hawaii. If you like to draw like me create a sketch based on your art work, or you can scan your photos and enhance these with photo editing software. If you have never been to Hawaii search for pictures that are in the public domain that you can use for your sketches of Waikiki. One thing I love to do when sketching pictures based on my own photographs is to use artistic license to move certain objects around. The palm trees and high rise hotels in my sketch are not exactly like the ones seen in my photograph I took back in 2002, but using artistic license allows me to play around with the details, and to create a setting that is to my liking. In other words, this Waikiki sketch portrays the essence of what I think about when recalling my trip to Hawaii, but it may not necessarily reflect exactly what is seen when actually strolling along this stretch of beach.

Once all the details have been added with the high rise details, the waves in the Pacific Ocean, and Diamond Head, it is time to move on to adding the color to this illustration.  First I began with using a bright hued sky blue color so the sky would really pop, which reminds me of the exquisite beauty of 1950 techno color films.

Basic drawing pencils and colored pencils are the perfect tools needed to create your own inspirational sketches.  Just find a reference picture and start sketching today!