How to Shade a Drawing

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By joeymiceli
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Shade a Drawing

Shading is the key to turning sketches into artwork. It creates depth and gives your drawing life. There are several ways to shade your drawing. And with the basic knowledge of shading, you can create an image using your preferred technique revealing a piece of art that is uniquely yours.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Step 1

A Source of Light!
Set up your drawing with an idea of a light source that will create the shadow in your work. To show the realism of shadowing look at the picture of the baseball. This picture shows the light source coming from the upper right hand corner. Once you have established a light source, you will be able to shade by creating the shadow of your image to reflect the light source you have chosen, allowing your work to come to life.
Step 2

Hatching and Crosshatching!
Hatching involves using lines to shade your drawing. From the area with the most concentrated darkness, you should draw the lines closer together. As you move to the light source the lines should be farther apart. Crosshatching is a step up from hatching. You use the same technique. But, you actually cross through the lines that you previously drew in a perpendicular manner. The picture reveals an image that has been shaded by crosshatching.
Step 3

Pixilating!
This type of shading uses small dots to create the shadow. Like hatching and Crosshatching the darker areas will be closer together. The areas of your design that you want to be lighter will have the least amount of dots spaced the furthest apart at the direct spot where the light source hits. Although, pixilating takes more effort than most types of shading it is very distinct from the others. Take a closer look at the sphere in order to see the tiny dots of this shading technique.
Step 4

Smooth Shading and Blending!
This is the most difficult type of shading to do. However, it looks the most realistic and will give you great results once you master it. Depending on what you are using to draw the picture (ex: pencil, charcoal, etc) the technique will differ. When using a pencil, for example, I've found it easiest to place the tip almost horizontal on the paper. While slide the tip from the darkest area to the lightest you can relieve pressure in order to show the natural transition that the light would make. When blending, you can use your finger to smear the noticeable strokes of the pencil to make it look more natural as well. There are also certain blenders that you can buy also.