Pencil Shading Techniques: Introduction

Hey, I'm Darlene and you're watching a Rapid Fire Art tutorial. In this video, I'm going to show you 4 simple shading techniques that can help you achieve realistic textures and effects that complement your drawings, helping you to describe them better. Shading Techniques Here are the 4 techniques I use the most. Hatching Cross Hatching Circulism and Contour Shading Hatching is done by drawing lines that run side by side, since the lines are uniformly patterned, it works very well for shading things like wood grain, brushed metals, and fingernails, just to name a few. Cross Hatching This is where you draw lines that cross right through each other. It's great for creating textures such as certain fabrics or fine lines on the skin. Circulism This one consists of many overlapping circles. It works very well for conveying soft or fuzzy surfaces. I use it a lot for shading realistic skin. Contour Shading This is where you create lines that follow the shape of the subject you're trying to represent. Contour lines can go in any direction. They're great for shading things that already display lines running along the surface. For example, apples, onions, and lips. In this example, the lines also double as lip wrinkles as well. For each shading technique, the harder you press down on your pencil, the darker your shading will appear. And the more densely you shade, the smoother your shading will be. Combine Techniques All of these shading techniques can be used in combination, wherever you see fit. I used all four of them to shade this wrinkly hand. The combination of these techniques helped me achieve various textures commonly seen in wrinkled skin. I used Circulism as a base layer to give it a consistent texture all throughout, a texture that resembles fine lines on the skin. Hatching and contouring were used to show stretched skin that wraps around the shape of the hand. Hatching also works very well for nails, especially nails that have prominent stripes. And crosshatching was used very minimally to create realistic wrinkle patterns around the knuckles, where the skin is thick. I varied my pressure to make some lines darker than others, just to make it look more random and realistic. Now, you don't have to stick to these four exclusively, because there are endless techniques that you can use, or just make up your own to create the texture and look that you want. Practice Here are some fun exercises you can do to practice. Exercise number one. Draw a row of squares and shade them from left to right, using your shading technique of choice. Remember that the more pressure you apply, the darker your shading will be. And the more densely you shade, the smoother it'll be. Exercise number two. Sketch a variety of common objects, and shade them in using shading techniques that best describe the texture. For example, I want to shade the toy horse so it looks wooden. Hatching looks similar to woodgrain, especially when some lines are made darker than the rest. The burlap sack is made of thickly weaved material. Cross hatching would work for this one, but I want to make the bag appear more 3D. So I'm using a combination of cross hatching and contouring, called cross contouring. Teddy bears are usually soft and fuzzy. Remember which of the four techniques create a soft texture? That's right, it's circularism. The more circles I draw, the softer the texture becomes. Feel free to experiment with a different one to see how it changes the look and feel. You can also combine shading techniques, or make up your own. Here are a few objects you can use for practice. For each one, sketch it out and choose one or several shading techniques that will best describe the texture. The texture that you choose to give each object is really up to you. Stretch your creativity muscles and have some fun with it. If you enjoyed this tutorial, give it a big thumbs up and subscribe to my channel for more detailed drawing tutorials. Let me know what you want to see next, and thanks for watching!