Drawitbetter Contest #11 | THE RAVINE

Only the bravest dare to cross the Ravine

When most people think of mountains, inevitably a long stretch of mountain range is the first thing that comes to mind. That's what I thought of drawing at first. But I wanted to do something a little different, so decided to do a ravine: a deep, narrow gorge with steep sides. I dunno, there's something edgy, dangerous and exciting when you see a really steep and deep ravine, especially when there are daredevil parachuters or air gliders passing through it.

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Process

I had never drawn mountains in detail before so this was especially challenging. I stopped working on this piece about 3 times and it took me several hours to complete.

However! I'm very, very happy with how it turned out, especially since this is the first time in years that I've painted a whole scene using watercolor!

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Special shoutout to my sister artist @nessyquel who inspired me to try traditional art again; my real life sister who is an artist, @jacinta.sevilla, who helped me improve this painting with her critique; and @sukiyakii for encouraging me to complete the painting.

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I start by doing an outline of the whole scene. At the beginning I wasn't sure whether or not I was gonna color it or just ink it. I drew on watercolor paper just in case: Canson 200 gsm and it's textured. I used a mechanical pencil .5mm 2B.

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Then comes the tedious part: layering. I start off with painting the rocks and cliffs with a very light brownish red color. I used my Prang watercolor for this. It only has 8 colors, but mixing is pretty fun, so no problem there.

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Next up, I paint all the greenery with a light yellow green color.

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At this point, I needed coffee.

If you know you won't finish the painting in one sitting, take breaks in between.
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Layering

Painting with watercolors is about building layers. I start with a dark brown. I use this for the shadows on the rocks and cliff face and the large cracks.

Next up is foliage. I mix a dark green color and dab it lightly all over where the leaves of the trees and plants are.

I add more brown to the rocks for shadowing effect. At this point, I'm thinking the image is a bit too plain which is why I decided to add the parachute guy. :)

Finally....

At the very end, I line everything with ink pens. I used a .005 pen for the small cracks in the stone and small leaves. I use a slightly thicker Pilot pen to do the darker shadows on the side of the rocks and underneath the foliage.

All done!

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Hope you guys enjoyed this post and tell me what you think of the drawing in the comments below.

See you next time,

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