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Shading Made Simple
Shading is an
important skill for every artist to develop.
Shading requires certain tools and steps to be developed in order to
master.
The ability to shade
is determined on how well you can see value relationships, along with a basic
understanding of how light works. Value,
or how light or dark something is, is relative.
Like many things artists experience, no single
value can exist by itself. Our eye will
automatically lighten or darken. A
medium grey will look almost white next to black and very dark next to
white. When determining value, it is
important to squint or open your eyes very wide. This keeps you from focusing in on a single
value and look at all of the value relationships together as a whole. Without doing this our eye will play a trick
on us. For example, if we focus in on a
shadow area of our subject, our eye will adjust to that specific value field
and give us a false reading. We will
have a tendency to start averaging our values, making our lights to dark and
our darks to light, failing to see the over all relationships.
Your sensitive touch
to the pencil is very important in shading.
Shading can range from blacks, dark grays, middle grays, lights, all the
way to whites. Each of these tones is
usually represented in your drawings.
Your pencil and the pressure applied to it, is another key to
shading. It is important that as an
artist you understand pressure and pay attention to how it affects your
drawings.
Blending is also a
skill in shading. Blending graphite can
be done easily with the correct method.
Laying pencil on smoothly with the strokes close together (so much so
that it’s hard to tell one stroke from another) is essential and necessary to
good shading. A controlled stroke laid
carefully with even pressure is important.
I also recommend using the end of a kneaded eraser to help you blend.
Again, practice is
the most important advice I can give any artist. Passion and practice will overcome any lack
of talent.
If you have
questions, feel free to contact info@learning2draw.com.
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