How to Draw a Mountain Peak
Mountains can dominate a landscape. Tall majestic peaks, gently rolling ranges or sharp brooding crags, the mountain can take on many forms and emotions that artists attempt to portray. When captured incorrectly, mountains will appear as flat, lifeless lumps on the page, dully sitting on the horizon. In order to draw a strong, beautiful and believable mountain peak, you need to build a mountain from its basic shape and use contrast and shadow to give it depth and weight.
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Instructions
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Sketch the overall shape of your mountain peak. Mountains come in many different shapes and sizes from a tall spire to the standard pyramid shape. Use source material either from photographs or real life and break down the basic outline and shape of the mountain. Don't worry about detail, just focus on capturing the overall shape and feel of the peak.
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Define the basic structural details of the mountain. A mountain is not a two-dimensional object. It has depth, height and width. A mountain not only extends lengthwise across the horizon but also extends in the other directions. Trace a few light, vertical lines where portions of the peak can be seen sloping toward you. Use a combination of zigzags, straight lines and curves depending on the overall structure of the mountain.
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Build your areas of shadow once the basic shape and details are in place. Decide where the sun is located in the sky and how strong the light is. This will change which portions of the mountains are shaded and how strong the contrast will be. A mountain peak with the sunset behind it will look very different from the same one at noontime. Additionally, the further away the mountain is from the viewer, the more the mountain fades into the sky, causing it to lose finer details such as shadows. Work from the lightest portions to the darkest as you use the shadows to define the three-dimensional shape of the peak.
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Add texture to the mountain while building the shadows. If the mountain is close enough in the drawing, you may be able to make out the texture. Snow will tend to have softer transitions from light to dark as well as having brighter highlights. Stone on the other hand will have darker highlights and more-abrupt transitions due to the sharp nature of rocks. For wooded slopes, lightly define the trees in the foreground but let the rest blend into each other with random soft areas of shadow. Squint at the drawing to get a good idea about how the texture will appear to the person viewing the drawing.
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Tips & Warnings
Working from a source image is always a good idea. It will help you capture subtle details that will help lend depth and realism to the drawing.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Art Wolfe/Digital Vision/Getty Images
