365 Days of Art: Day 180 – Drawing a Mountain Stream (Finished)

The challenge: Create some form of visual art, no matter how small, each day for a full year.

Last night, I started this picture of a mountain stream. I’m on vacation in Sylva, NC near the Blue Ridge Parkway and Smokey Mountains. I took this picture of a mountain stream down at the Lower Falls of Graveyard Fields. I’m using a mechanical #2 Bic pencil (it’s all I brought), a blending stub, and a Pentel Clic eraser. (I forgot my kneaded eraser.) I finished about half of this last night, and I worked on the rest of it off and on today.

Here is the finished product:

Ignore that weird dot in the middle of the bottom right waterfall. I don’t know what caused it, but I can’t erase it off.

This exercise was daunting for me. If you’ve followed this blog, I’ve been doing mostly drawings of tiny, quick things. I’ve worked of watercolor paintings that have take time, but this is the first time in my life I’ve ever attempted such a complex scene. This has really changed my outlook on my own skill level, and I can’t wait to start doing more complex scenes and drawings. I hope to take this and make it a watercolor picture as well.

Here is my half-done drawing from last night:

Here is my photo of the stream. (Special thanks to iPhone’s long exposure function…):

We head home to Naples tomorrow, so I’ve got two days on the road. Have a great evening everyone!