How to draw · Challenge · about 50 minutes

Underwater Coral Reef

You need: Paper, Pencil, Eraser. Optional: Colored pencils: blues, coral pink, purple, yellow and orange.

Thick lines: draw these now. Thin gray: already drawn. Dashed: light guides you erase later.

Finished
  1. backgroundmiddle groundforeground

    1. Split your paper into three depths with two light guide lines: the far reef at the back, the middle ground, and the sandy foreground nearest you.

  2. 2. Start with the nearest thing: a branching coral at the bottom left. Each branch splits into two thinner branches, with round tips.

  3. 3. On the right, draw three tube sponges. Each top is an ellipse, because you see the round opening from a little above. Add a smaller ellipse inside each.

  4. 4. Add tall blades of sea grass, two rocks and a starfish with five arms. The second rock is behind the first, so stop its line there.

  5. 5. Draw the edge of the sand: a gentle wavy line on the lower guide. Stop it at the coral, sponges, grass and rocks in front.

  6. 6. Draw a big fish swimming left: a long oval body with a pointed nose, a forked tail, a fin on top and one below, a gill line and an eye.

  7. 7. Draw a small striped fish facing right near the sponges, the same way but smaller. Add a trail of bubbles above the sponges and the starfish.

  8. 8. In the middle ground, draw a brain coral: a dome behind the rocks. Draw wavy grooves that curve around the dome, like lines on a ball: they show its shape.

  9. 9. Behind the coral on the left, draw a sea fan: a short stem that splits again and again into thinner branches, spreading out like a fan.

  10. 10. Far away, draw the back of the reef on the top guide with a few coral bumps and a school of tiny fish. Use thin, light lines: far things look pale under water.

  11. erase

    11. Erase the two guide lines.

  12. 12. Sunlight shines down from the surface. Draw a few beams of light: pairs of long, light lines slanting down from the top, stopping behind the fish.

  13. middle value

    13. Light comes from above, so shade the right side of each coral branch and sponge, the dome's shady side and the lower half of each fish: a middle value.

  14. dark value

    14. Make the darkest values up close: inside the sponge openings, under the rocks and the shadows on the sand. Far things stay pale; near things get the strongest darks.

Practice here

Tip: Plan where the big fish goes before you draw the middle ground, so it does not get lost behind the coral.