Step by Step Crescent Moon – using waterbrush pens

My magical galaxy mountain landscape in a crescent moon designs are my fave to paint. They are so simple and quick to create – and at the same time very therapeutic (which is why I like to create art in the first place). Once you know the basics and how to break down the process into steps – you can adapt this design to create cards, or use in your bullet journal!

Here are the basic steps of how to create your own crescent landscape moon:

Step one:

With a pencil, use a round object or the outline of masking tape to draw the outer curve of your moon.

Step two:

Then draw the inner curve free-hand by following the top point on the curve to the bottom point.

Step three:

Now that you have your crescent moon shape in pencil, use a black water-proof drawing pen (I use uni-ball pen fine line) to go over the moon outline. Rub out any pencil lines that are left visible.

Step four:

Now inside the crescent moon, draw the outline of your mountain. You can do this is pencil first – or directly with the pen. The most peaks I tend to do is three or two – but you can adjust this to how you want to!

Step five:

Now, choose which colours you want in the sky part of your crescent moon landscape. You can use traditional paint or waterbrush pens (like I have in this tutorial). For the sky, don’t use too many colours, no more than four. Make sure you have your aqua brush ready, or a small cup of water and paintbrush.

Step six:

The fun part! Add some splodges of ink/paint randomly using all colours chosen to the sky. If you want your sky to be dark at the top and light at the top, do dark splodges at the top and use light colours at the bottom. Then using your paintbrush or aqua brush dipped in water, spread and mix the colours on your page together. Use the brush to blend the colours – and try to stay inside the lines.

Step seven:

Once the sky part is dry, use a black pen or black watercolour ink to colour in the mountains to make them look like a silhouette against the sky. All this layer of sky and mountains to dry properly.

Step eight:

One everything is fully dry (you can use a hair dryer or heat gun to speed the drying process) – you can use a white ball point pen to dot in the stars. Use big dots for big stars and small dots for smaller stars. Using the white pen, also add some light shading to one side of each mountain. Use long even strokes downwards.

And there you have it! your basic crescent mountain illustration is complete – and doesn’t it look cute?!

If you try this tutorial out, don’t forget to tag me on twitter! @lenasnotebookThanks very much for reading my tutorial and I hope you have fun doing some art!