reading time: 7 min

In this article I will try to describe a very simple way to draw a forest in 4 steps; the advantage of this method is that it is a "base" you could enlarge, or add as many details as you wish according to your level.

To illustrate this article I made a "basic" forest without details, it took me 35 minutes.

1. Before you start.

Do not skip this step! This is where you will understand how we are going to proceed (and why).

 

What is difficult in a forest drawing is to give depth, and to achieve this we will use two tools:

1. Shades of colors: indeed the deeper the forest, the darker it will be, so we are going to make a gradient from darkest to lightest, from the last shot to the foreground.

2. The fog: naturally our eye "blurs" what it does not look at, (for example put your hand in front of you and look at it, all that is behind and blurred, what is "at the bottom"). For our forest we are going to add fog at the bottom of our trees, this will accentuate this distance effect.

 

In our drawing we are going to use different layers which will be the different "planes" of our drawing (see the sketch below).

1. The basics.

To start we have to choose a color palette, personally I went with fairly dark blues for a dark and nocturnal atmosphere; what matters is that you stay in the same range of colors that we will then qualify (do not take green + red + blue...).

 

1. The first layer is the background, so the darkest color.

2. The second is the first row of trees + the ground: a lighter color than the background but still very dark.

+ with the same color add leaves thanks to the "leaves" brushes (in the background), the leaves are mainly at the top so no need to put them everywhere.

 

💡 Regarding the drawing of the trees try to space them enough and that it is not perfectly straight (see image), make the trunk first then add the branches.

 

 

2. More trees.

We have our bottom, first tree ranger and floor, suites and the like.

 

3. Our third layer is a new row of trees (in a lighter color) this time without the ground (since it's already there) and with roots.

4. Another row of lighter trees.

 

Personally I stopped there but nothing prevents you from continuing to add trees.

3. Details.

In order to make my trees less "flat" I added some green lines.

With the "bush" brushes and a color close to that of the background, I added small grasses to the feet.

 

💡 You can add more or less details according to your desires.

4. The "fog"

Although our forest is fine like this, the fog will make it deeper and give a darker atmosphere.

 

With an "Airbrush" type brush and the same color as the ground, you are going to add "fog" at the bottom and at the top between each row of trees; which means our first row was layer 2 and our second row was layer 3, so you'll add a layer in between and paint there.

 

1. background layer.

1.2 fog layer

2. First row trees

2.2 fog layer

3. Second row shafts

3.1 fog layer

4. Last row trees

4.1 fog layer

 

Note that your "fog" must not be totally opaque, you must be able to see the trunk and the roots of the tree behind, the more the trees are in the background, the fewer the tracks.

 

💡 I also put little bright spots to look like fireflies.

 

Colors.

We finished ! Again this is a base that you can adapt.

 

I advise you to experiment with different colors that can give different atmospheres; I share with you the same drawing that we just made but with different palettes.

I sincerely hope this helps you, I realize it's a fairly simple forest but you have to start simple and evolve little by little.

 

Don't be too hard on yourself, you have to start somewhere!