How to Draw a Thunderstorm
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Start off by picking your supplies. I used B and white Euro Blend charcoal. These are the equivalent of 2B/4B charcoal/graphite and regular white charcoal. If you are drawing this using graphite follow the same steps but replace the white charcoal wi
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Start off by lightly and roughly shading over your paper with charcoal. Your charcoal pencil will work fine for this if you shade very lightly, however, if you have soft vine charcoal use that instead.
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Take a blending stump and smooth out your shading as much as possible. Don't worry if you can see the paper;s underlying texture; this is just a base layer for the rest of the drawing.
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Use your charcoal pencil and a ruler or T-square to sketch in your horizon. Then use white charcoal to sketch in some basic cloud shapes.
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Use you charcoal pencil to shade in the darker areas of the sky. Use white charcoal to shade in the lighter areas. Shade lightly!
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Use a blending stump to smooth out your shading. Try to work from the lightest area to the darkest area using a circular motion to blend the charcoal together.
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Use you charcoal pencil to roughly shade in the shadowy areas of the sky and the dark clouds. Shade roughly,; don't worry about perfection.
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Go over your darker shading with white charcoal to make it a light grey then add some highlights around the clouds.
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Use a blending stump to smooth out your shading as much as you can. Don't worry if the paper texture still shows you'll be able to add more layers later.
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Roughly sketch a lighthouse into the foreground. It;s up to you what your lighthouse looks like. Be as creative as possible with it!
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Use white charcoal to sketch in the waves that are slamming into the lighthouse.Use your charcoal pencil to roughly shade in the ocean using horizontal strokes.
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Fill in the crashing waves with white charcoal. You only need a rough layer of white hear so shade lightly.
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Blend in your waves and then the ocean using a blending sump. If you've made it this far, congratulations, you're half way there!
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Start adding the base forms of your lightning using white charcoal. You can add as much lightning as you want and make it as wild as you want it to be!
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Branch off from your base lightning bolts with thinner bolts. Add even more thinner lightning bolts to make you storm a bit more menacing.
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Before moving away from the sky add a bit more detail and layers to the clouds. Use you charcoal pencil to go over the darker areas of the clouds and a blending stump to smooth them out a bit. Then use white charcoal to add highlights to the clouds
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Add some more layers of shading to the water. Make your horizon more crisp and mix some white charcoal into you dark charcoal to make some foamy waves.
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Use you charcoal pencil to sketch in your lighthouse. You can your lighthouse as simple or as complex as you want it to be.
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Add some rough shading using your pencils. This will just serve as a base layer for more refined shading.
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Refine the shading on your lighthouse. Add multiple layers to the light itself to make it brighter. blend your white charcoal into the dark charcoal to add more values. Get as detailed as you want to here.
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Use your charcoal pencil to outline the crashing waves. Try to make you waves flow outwards, away from the lighthouse.
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Blend in your waves with a blending stump. Use an outward motion when blending to give the waves a more natural look.
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Add finishing details to your drawing. I started from the skies and worked my way forwards with my details. Use white charcoal to add more highlights to you water and use a blending stump to soften t a bit. With a drawing like this there is always so
