Shading Practice

The next step is to concentrate more on tone in order to draw apparently three-dimensional shapes.

1. To start with, draw some shading, using vertical strokes that gradually get lighter until they disappear altogether.

2. Now draw a circle and shade in around the outer rim, making the tone gradually lighter and lighter as you approach the centre. As you can see, this resembles a sphere.

3. Draw a square, then draw three parallel lines from three of the corners, as shown. Draw two more lines parallel to the edge of the square. What appears before your eyes is a conventional representation of a cube shape – a three-dimensional object.

4. A way to do a similar figure is to draw a flattened diamond shape, extend three verticals from the corners and then join their ends to make another cube.

5. Give this last figure a three-dimensional quality by shading in the two lower surfaces of the cube with an even tone – not too dark. Then work over the left-hand surface with a slightly darker tone. Draw in a cast shadow stretching away from the darker side of the cube. All this has the effect of making the cube look even more solid.

6. The next exercise is to draw some ellipses, which are curved shapes that resemble a circle seen from an oblique angle. If you look at a wine glass, the top edge and the base will appear to be ellipses unless you are viewing it from immediately above. Draw several of these to get the idea, remembering that the curve must be continuous, without any flattened bits or pointed ends. Depict some of them on their narrow ends so that they resemble a wheel seen from an angle.

7. You can now use your ellipse-drawing skill to depict a cylinder. Draw the ellipse, then project two vertical lines downwards from the narrow edges. Draw a second ellipse at the lower end of the two straight lines. To make the cylinder appear solid, rub out the top edge of this ellipse.

When you’ve done that, shade very lightly down the left-hand side of the cylinder, allowing the tone to fade off to nothing about halfway across the length. Darken a strip down the left-hand side of this shadow, not quite touching the side of the cylinder. Finally, put in a cast shadow as you did with the cube.