How I Practice Shading

Basic Shading Techniques

Shading

Shading is the act of depicting the range of darkness within a composition through a medium, thus creating a scale of dark to light. Shading can also be done with colors, it doesn't have to be in greyscale.

Types of Shading

The most common examples of shading consist of Hatching, Crosshatching, Blending, and stippling.

Hatching

A drawing technique that consists of closely spaced parallel lines.

Crosshatching

A drawing technique that consists of closely spaced coverlapping parallel lines.

Blending

A drawing technique used to gradually blend colors and lines.

Stipping

A drawing technique that uses small closely spaced dots to articulate value and dimension. 

What Are The Components of Shading?

Highlight

The lightest spot or area.

Mid Tone

Midway between the highlight and the shadow.

Core Shadow

The darkest part of the shadow.

Reflected Light

The light on the dark side of the shadow.

Cast Shadow

The shadow created by the object on adjacent surfaces.

Greyscale Practice

A good way to practice drawing shadows is by using an egg or a circular object and casting light directly on it. Adjust the light until you get your ideal shadow gradience and get to practicing. 

The way that I practice shading is by drawing a long rectangle and dividing it into a 6 box color value scale, that I number 0-5 After that I will draw 4 more boxes underneath it and label them Hatching, Crosshatching, Blending, and Stippling. Then I will go into each box and use that shading technique to match the colors in the value scale.

To make this exercise easier, I have included a free color scale printable. The printable is pre-formatted so you don't have to worry about drawing the boxes and getting the initial value scale correct, you can just focus on matching it the one that I have provided you.

In the real world, however, I recommend getting a grayscale and color value finder. These will be more accurate to the grayscale than printing it off the computer, however, printing this worksheet will be more than sufficient for general practice.

Color Testing Mediums

Whenever I practice my drawings. I typically use pencils. Some of the better pencils to use when practicing greyscale are graphite pencils. Below is an image of a graphite pencil test that I did for color value. I typically do this before I get into the practicing greyscale.