Drawing An Acorn From The San Bernardino Mountains
Today I am envisioning the pictures I would like to design for my Thanksgiving cards, so I am conjuring up images of autumn that are more relevant to me. Since I grew up in the San Bernardino Mountains, I equate Thanksgiving with leaves falling off the oak trees, and acorns in clusters on the ground below. Before Europeans came to the San Bernardino Mountains, the Serrano Indians used to have autumn camps up there for the purpose of gathering acorns and grinding these into meal to make mush and flat breads, which were a staple of their diet. Growing up I even made a few acorn pan cakes to replicate the experience of the Serrano Indians, and as a young person I wanted Thanksgiving to be about a Native American tribe I could identify with geographically. Thanksgiving is a holiday that should be about things you hold near and dear, not solely based on the Colonial version of the story we are told in grade school.
For instance, find the things you are thankful for when celebrating Thanksgiving. I am thankful for having grown up in the mountains and being able to see squirrels scampering up trees while they munched on acorns, which shows how wonderful and resourceful oak trees are to both humans and animals. To me, Thanksgiving should about celebrating the natural beauty of the American landscape. Today you can still find serenity in nature, but you might just have to hike into the wilderness to truly experience it. Growing up in the San Bernaridno Mountains allowed me to experience the majesty of the nature that a person can only find by just sitting at the top of the Pinnacles and looking down towards the Mojave Desert, or to Lake Silverwood and Mount Baldy in the distance.
My way of celebrating Thanksgiving is by drawing a picture of an acorn I found during a walk up in the mountains.
How To Draw An Acorn
The photograph I took of an acorn I collected up in the San Benrardino Mountains was the inspiration for my acorn drawing.
To begin the simple drawing of an acorn, I first sketch out an oval like shape for the body of the acorn.
In the picture above I have finished drawing the acorn body, and now I am going to move on to sketching on the cap of the acorn.
Here I am beginning to draw on more of the acorn cap. I am adding little ridges to look like the texture of the acorn cap in the picture.
In the photo above I have finished drawing the acorn, which is attached to a small branch on an oak tree. Also, I have drawn other branches behind the acorn.
In the photo above I am coloring in the gray branches of the tree. The acorn is attached to one branch, and others are directly behind the acorn.
I finished coloring the shell of my acorn with a rich chocolate brown colored pencil.
In this phase of the sketch I have colored in the acorn cap with a light brown colored pencil.
In the photo above I am coloring in the blue sky surrounding the acorn and the tree. When I look up at the tree branches in the San Bernardino Mountians, I often would see acorns attached to the tree as in the picture I have created from my imagination. The photograph I took of the acorn helped with the sketch, but I also used artistic license in creating this image for my Thanksgiving card design.
I have finished coloring in my acorn drawing, and now I am ready to scan it. After I scan the image I can print it out to make Thanksgiving themed cards. Take photographs of acorns, pumpkins, and other autumn themed items to create you own drawings for Thanksgiving Day cards.
Above is a video of what my completed acorn drawing looked like once I finished using colored pencils to shade it in.
A nice set of colored pencils are need for drawing pictures of acorns, and other autumn themed subjects, such as pumpkins.