Basic shading for beginners

Decide where the light is

Before you shade anything, choose where the light comes from — and stick to it for the whole drawing. Top left is the classic choice because it feels natural to most people, but any direction works. Draw a small sun or arrow in the corner of your canvas as a reminder. You can erase it at the end.

Every surface that faces the light is light. Every surface that turns away from it is dark. That one rule does most of the work. When a drawing looks “wrong” after shading, it is almost always because different parts were shaded as if the light came from different places.

Three values are enough

A value is how light or dark a colour is, ignoring its hue. Professional artists can use dozens of values. Beginners get far better results with just three:

• Light — surfaces facing the light. Often just the paper or base colour.
• Mid — surfaces turning away. The “local” colour of the object.
• Dark — surfaces facing away, and shadows.

Pick your three values before you start. On the free canvas, black, grey and white work for practice. In colour, use a lighter and a darker version of each object’s colour — the colour theory guide shows how to choose them.

Form shadow and cast shadow

There are two kinds of shadow, and beginners usually only draw one.

• The form shadow is on the object itself — the side turned away from the light. It has a soft edge where the surface curves gradually away (a ball) and a hard edge where it turns sharply (a box).
• The cast shadow is the shadow the object throws onto the ground or other objects. It falls on the opposite side from the light, it is darkest right where the object touches the surface, and it gets lighter and softer further away.

The cast shadow is what makes an object sit on the ground. Without it, even a perfectly shaded ball floats.

Practice: shade a ball

1. Draw a circle and mark the lightPut a small sun at the top left of the canvas.
2. Fill it with the mid valueThe whole ball, flat.
3. Add the dark sideDraw a curved crescent on the bottom right, following the shape of the ball. Leave a thin sliver of mid value at the very edge — that is reflected light bouncing off the ground.
4. Add the light sideA lighter patch towards the top left, and a small white highlight inside it.
5. Cast the shadowA flattened oval on the ground to the bottom right, darkest where it touches the ball.

Then do the same with a cube and a cylinder. Almost every object is a combination of those three: a cat is spheres and cylinders, a house is cubes, a tree is a cylinder under a sphere. Once they work, shading the step-by-step tutorials becomes the same exercise in disguise.

Shading on a digital canvas

Digital tools make shading faster than pencil, because you can lay down a value and adjust it freely.

• Marker for shadows. The marker in the free studio is translucent, so a dark grey or deep blue marker over a colour darkens it while letting the colour show through — exactly how a shadow behaves.
• Crayon for texture. Its broken, waxy texture is perfect for the soft transition between light and shadow.
• Large size for big areas. Shade with the biggest size you can, then go smaller only for edges.
• Undo freely. If a shadow is too heavy, undo it and try a lighter colour rather than painting over it.

Common shading mistakes

Shading around the outline

Running a dark band all the way around the edge of a shape makes it look like a cookie cutter, not a solid object. Shadows belong on one side only — the side away from the light.

Too many light sources

Shading each part separately, without checking the sun, gives every part its own lighting. Keep looking back at your light-source mark.

Not dark enough

Beginners are afraid of their darkest value, so everything ends up mid-grey and flat. Push the darks further than feels comfortable; it is the contrast between light and dark that creates form.

Smudging everything

Perfectly smooth gradients everywhere look like plastic. Keep some edges hard — where a box turns a corner, or where a cast shadow begins.

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