Drawing Exercise: Shading a Sphere
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Want to add dimension to your drawing? Shading is a key tool in communicating shape. To get started is nice to start with some simple shapes, like a box, cylinder, or a sphere. Once you learn and understand how to shade these simple shapes you can extend to more complex shapes like fruit and a face.
Materials you'll need for this exercise:
Pencils of a variety of grades.
regular eraser
pencil sharpener
sketch pad with acid free paper
Optional
Blending stumps
See all my art supplies
Step 1 - Find your reference.
I've compiled a some potential references on Pinterest.
Step 2 - identify light source
In my example the light is coming from the top right and in front of the object.
Step 3 - Draw the outline
It doesn't have to be perfect. I moved my arm in a circular motion to make the outline below. I used a neutral grade (B or HB).
Step 4 - Add the Midtone
Generally cover the whole sphere, except for the highlight. Not ideal that my edges are darker here, but that's ok. Used the same B pencil and held at an angle.
Step 4 - Get in the shadows
Added the shadow on the surface the sphere is sitting on and on the lower/right half of the sphere. Use a softer pencil - 2b - 4b.
Push the shadows with a 6b+
Step 5 - Smoothen the transitions
Experiment with your grades to smooth the transitions. really fill in all of the spots where the paper is exposed (except for the highlight of course). Use a kneaded eraser to pick up spots that are too dark.
Step 6 - Make sure you have all of the parts
The highlight, shadow, cast shadow (darkest part), reflected light, ... Do some of them need to be darker/lighter.? Are some of your edges more or less crisp than your reference?
There you have it. You can shade a sphere. With practice, you can shade anything.
If you want to start your painting journey, I've put together a list of all my go to supplies to get you started.