How to Draw Pictures of Death Valley

Find a variety of landscapes to draw in Death Valley.

If you like landscape drawings, especially of deserts and mountains, "Death Valley" would make an ideal subject to draw. Death Valley, located at the lowest land level in the Western Hemisphere, is a land of extremes with canyons and mountains around the edges of the valley, as well as sand dunes and fields of flowers. Drawing a landscape takes some practice, but with the right tools and technique you can create your own drawings of Death Valley.

Things You'll Need

• Reference photo
• Paper
• Pencil
• Chamois cloth
• Eraser
• Blue-Tack
• Tortillion

Instructions

1. Find a photo of Death Valley that you want to draw and tape it up on the wall directly in front of you so you can easily reference it. Draw your horizon line lightly with a pencil, all the way across and use a ruler to make the line straight. Sketch in the general shape of canyons or mountains lightly and then darken the lines.

2. Color in the sky with your pencil. Fill in the sky with broad, light, horizontal strokes and then with diagonal strokes going in different directions. This layering technique is called "cross hatching." Wrap a chamois cloth around your finger and blend the cross hatch so that it becomes one smooth, solid layer.

3. Erase the spots on the sky to add clouds. Work slowly and carefully so that you don't erase too much. Rub a piece of Blu-Tack lightly in circular motions to create very light, wispy clouds. Lightly add more shadow near the outside edges of the clouds with your pencil and use a tortillion to blend the pencil marks. A tortillion looks like a rolled-up piece of paper that has a point on the end, which is used for precision pencil blending.

4. Color in the canyons and mountains using the cross hatch technique and start very lightly so that you can darken the areas by layering more pencil. Blend with your chamois cloth and tortillion. Add the details, starting with light strokes and then darken them as you work your way to the foreground. Make the details like flowers, shrubs and rocks, become sharper as you work your way to the foreground.

References

• National Park Service: Death Valley Visitor Guide

Resources

• Wild Nature Images: Death Valley Photos