A beautiful ‘azul’ cartoon beach – first of the landscape drawing lessons here on the site. Can’t think of a better way to kick things off.
While working through this drawing lesson, I recommend you have a ruler on hand, some pencil crayons (or photoshop!), and any other tools that will help make the process that much easier and fun. A circle stencil for example, would be helpful for drawing the sun, clouds, and the beach ball.
Let’s hit the beach!
First Step – Shapes + Lines = Cartoon Beach!
Much the same with any ‘subject-focused’ lesson here on the site, I’d like to tackle this one in a very similar manner – mapping out lines and shapes before-hand, to help reveal the simple plan – framework – allowing you to feel more at ease as you bring your work into view.
Beginning with the subdivisions of the three main components of our picture – sky, water, and sand… here’s what we’ve got…
Pop quiz!
Any idea just what on earth these shapes will soon become?
Well – a quick look up top – and you’ll quickly find that they are in fact, the sun (circle), some palm tree leaves (triangle), a beach ball (another circle) and last but not least – an umbrella — marked off by a simple angled rectangle.
Simple stuff – exactly how we want it to be! 🙂
Second Step – How to Draw a Cartoon Beach
And – now that we’ve got the ‘gist’ of it… let’s move on with the gradual and sequential placement of our lines – beginning with those things that would appear CLOSEST to the eyes of the viewer.
Simple lines revealing simple components of our soon-to-be-beach, here’s how to bring things into view, step by step…
So – how are things coming along so far? If there’s anything I think you might have some difficulty with at this point – it’d be those clouds. But really, clouds come in all shapes and sizes, so dig deep creatively and give creating your own unique version of these clouds – a go.
Below, is a simple colored version of our cartoon beach…
While this colored version is great – easily capturing the look of a simple cartoon landscape (perfect for a comic strip!)… you might still want to take things a step further. Especially if you’re using an image editing program like Photoshop, a few extra steps can drastically effect the overall perception of the drawing.
To show you what I mean, here’s how things look with the addition of some gradients, the subtraction of some black lines, and the changing in color of some other lines…
Ahh – now that looks refreshing! A beautiful cartoon beach – exactly what we were aiming for.
And regarding those gradients – the transition from one shade of blue to another – like with the sand and the water… you can achieve similar results with the use of pencil crayons, paint, etc. In fact, I’d recommend you give Prismacolor pencil crayons a try as their oil-based properties allow for more control over blending, as they smear quite easily.
And that’s all there is to it. Until next time!