Whistling Swans
Reference Photograph
Working from a
reference photo can be
tough! Remember to
give yourself a little
flexibility. Just capture
the essence, it doesn't
have to be exact!
Step 1: First I loosely drew the outlines for the swans with a pastel pencil. Then, I blocked in the swans with
white, creating some texture and form. I also blocked in the background grass area with a brown pastel. For
the water, I loosely blocked in the large areas with a blue pastel and then used the edge of the blue pastel in
order to create some underlying structure to the water. I was somewhat careful in considering where I
wanted the light and darker spaces of blue to be.
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