Drawing rocks is actually quite fun. I like things with a lot of contrast, and rocks always deliver, especially when they are sitting in water. This exercise contains all of the same elements as the drawing of the deer and water. It will give you the practice you need for drawing realistic rocks.
.5mm mechanical pencil with 2B lead
kneaded eraser
ruler
smooth bristol paper
tortillion
To keep it simple, let’s just draw a few of the rocks. Lightly draw in the shapes freehand. Since rocks come in all shapes and sizes, it isn’t imperative that they match mine exactly.
Once the shapes have been drawn in, fill in the darkest areas found on the lower portions of each rock. Create the mirror image of the rocks in the water, directly beneath them. Use your pencil to draw in some horizontal lines in the water.
Lightly blend out the tones. Use a horizontal stroke with the tortillion when creating the water to help with the look of reflections. Reapply the pencil lines to make them appear again.
Deepen the dark tones of the rocks with your pencil to make them look as dark as possible. With the kneaded eraser, lift out the refections in the water, using quick horizontal strokes. Lift out the light mirror images of the light rocks on the left.
Practice drawing this pond scene using all of the info learned so far. If you need some help drawing it, you could place an acetate grid over it.
POND SCENE
Graphite on smooth bristol
8” × 6” (20cm × 16cm)