I encountered many challenges through this process. First, I had no idea how to achieve a realistic rippled water effect with acrylic. I talked to Brie and she advised me to go more abstract and gestural with layers of different blues. I think it was the right call. Then, when I first drew the swans, I did not know their form well so they ended up looking flat. I asked Brie again and she gave me some helpful advice. The paper I had chosen was quite textured and, since I was working on a very small area, this made it hard to achieve realistic shading. She suggested that I use a mechanical pencil for the shading and that I make the water darker so the swans would pop. I found this really worked and, after looking at some more pictures of swans, I was feeling much better. Finally, I ran into some trouble with the mountains in the background because they were much smaller and less rugged than the mountains I had drawn before. However, after some practice and a close study of the photo, I managed to get a result that makes me quite proud.