Today I am dreaming of warmer times, so I distracted myself with a beach drawing.

In my preview, the aspect ration is all screwed up. Hopefully it comes out right in the published version.

The main new hurdles I wanted to work on jumping are drawing the sandy beach with some indicative texture, drawing the water so the surf looks surfy, and having enough rocky background that it looks interesting without overwhelming the main subject of the piece. I feel like I have made progress on all of those things, although there's room for lots more practice. I like the way the shallow water dragging over small stones implies water almost as much as the changes in color along the edges of the sand. I like the apparent three-dimensionality of the water. I really like the way the (really very small) rock outcropping looks. 

I would love to figure out how to draw the fluffy white clouds with bits of golden sunlight shining through them, using pencils. I tried shading the whole sky and then erasing where the clouds should be, but that didn't really work well at all. I'd love any advice people have to offer about how to draw clouds in pencil. Of course with paint or crayon etc I could just layer white on top of whatever color the sky will be. But with graphite, it seems like I have to figure out where NOT to draw... Oh well, I'll keep working on it.

Thanks as always!