How To Guides

Okay…say you’re using colored pencils (not sure what you’re using, but for sake of an answer):

1. Always start with your sky. The very top of your page would be basic sky blue. As you get lower, start coloring very lightly to fade out the blue to white. Then add yellow very faintly to blend from blue, to yellow, then add whatever color you want your sunset to be…orange, red, purple, pink, etc. You can include the sun just sinking, if you like, by using very bright yellow (don’t draw a circle, just a nice bright glow). Stop a little below the mid line of the page in a straight line across the page (like someone just “cut” across the page and it’s suddenly white the rest of the way down.)

2. Now you’re ready for your lake. Take a blue pencil (same color as the top of your sky) and draw the water line across where your sky stopped. Fade out at the middle, or wherever your “sun” is glowing the brightest. Then fade in as you go across the page, ending the same shade as you started on the opposite side. Use whatever colors you put in the sunset and “mirror” the colors in the water. For instance, if you have a gold colored glow for the sun, make a gold colored glow in the water just beneath the sun. Then when that color changes to pink, make the water pink around the gold glow in the water that is the sun. The water then fades to blue just as your sky above faded to blue, only it isn’t as if you’re looking at it straight, but as if it were colored on a square sign facing you and then someone laid the sign at an angle on its back, so it slants away from you. (Sorry–it’s hard to describe without being able to show you.) If you then want to make the water look real, add a lot more blue and deeper shadows to it at the edges. You can add grass, trees, or other details in the foreground (very bottom of your page) if you like.

Waves and ripples are hard to make look real. The key is keeping your pencil moving left to right very STRAIGHT, not at all in a curved stroke, or it will look like blue “hay” instead of water. To make ripples, leave the top of a wave white and color in the bottom part of it fading darker to blue. Again, straight lines across is how you make it look real. Look at a photo if you’re having trouble.

Good luck, hope this helps. Look at a photograph if you’re still stumped.