Sketching the Dolphins: Pencil Shading Guide

If you love sketching animals and especially Dolphins then you have landed to the right page. 

Lately, we did a lot of artwork related with Dolphins. We made some origami dolphins and did some sketching of Dolphins.

Dolphins are simply adorable and today this tutorial will show you how to draw a pair of Dolphins jumping out of the sea. For this sketching exercise, you will need an HB pencil, an eraser, some color pencils such as dark blue, light blue, orange, yellow, red and gray.

Let's start with the simple tutorial on learning to sketch the dolphins jumping out the water. Follow the steps closely and I am sure it is not that difficult as it looks.

Step 01: Firstly begin with rough outlines of the sea line, and the twin dolphins one behind the other.

Step 02: Next, add the fins.

Step 03: Now, define the mouth area.

Step 04: Add the tail in this step.

Step 05: Add the eyes and complete the fins as shown. The rough sketch of the dolphins is ready.

Step 06: Start applying pencil shading to the body and the tail end.

Step 07: We have just used an HB pencil to add shades. You can try with a 2B pencil too. Use gradiated shading technique here. Apply pencil shading by laying pencil lead sideways. 

Pencil Shading with 2B pencil

Step 08: We also added some dark blue in the dark areas as shown below. Complete shading the dolphins by adding some gray color at the bottom part of the dolphin.

Step 09: Now, add the details for the waves and water splashing around the dolphins as they jump out of the water.

Step 10: Using dark blue and light blue complete the waves. 

Step 11: We added the sun too in the background. Use orange and yellow for the sun at this stage.

Step 12: Add dashes of red also to highlight the sunlight spreading across the sky and blend it with the light blue color for the sky.

Finally, use the eraser to remove some of the oranges and yellow and blend the colors. Also, use the eraser to remove some blue color around the tail of the dolphins to show the water splashes as they rise out of the water.

A Pair of Dolphins jumping out of the sea

Hope this tutorial on sketching the dolphins was helpful. Let us know in your comments. Here's a snapshot of the Dolphin sketching by Art Hours students.

Dolphin Sketching by our students

Thank you for stopping by.

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