Form / Value Part 1
Form / Value Part 2
Form / Value Part 3
Form / Value Part 4
Site Map
| Drawing Tips
Instead of shading around highlights, try working from the middle.
1. Fill the entire subject to a mid-value.
2. Darken the shadows.
3. Erase the highlights.
4. Add the more subtle value variations.
Use a value scale to help you see the true values of the subject.
Value scales are especially helpful for interpreting challenging color combinations into gray scale, such as red roses in front of a green background.
You can download a value scale and find out how to use them on my Free Drawing Tools Page.
Drawing is like any skill. You have to practice regularly to be good at it!
|
|
 |
Drawing From Life Workshop - Creating realistic, three dimensional form with value (or shading.)
Steps 7 and 8 |
|
|
Step 7 - I revisited the medium dark shadows.
Using the 4B pencil again, I hatched the medium dark shadows (5's, 6's, and 7's) to their full values and reshaped their edges if they needed it. By studying the towel carefully, I saw that most of the dark shadow lines were "harder" or ended more abruptly on one side than the other. In areas where the shadow made a transition into a highlight in a more graduated way, I lightened the pressure on the pencil a bit to create a lighter hatching. As the graduation lightened even more, I switched to the B pencil to continue the hatching so that it would merge smoothly into the lighter areas that had already been created with the B pencil. |
Some of the shadows ended in a "harder" line on one side and were more graduated on the other side.
|
| I felt that some areas needed to be darkened in an overall way and I hatched over those places with the side of the B pencil, including hatching over the parts I had originally created with the 4B pencil. I continually compared the values to each other and to the subject as I drew them.
During these final steps, and at many other points in this drawing, I had a dialog going on in my head that went something like this: Is this area darker than the area next to is? Does this edge graduate into the next area or does it end abruptly? How close to the edge of the fold does this shape come? Talking to myself like this as I drew helped me to focus on each area and to see it as it actually looked.
To re-shape some of the shadows and highlight areas that needed it, tapped their edges several times with the tip of a kneaded eraser that I'd pinched into a point. The tapping motion created a rough texture that blended well with the texture created by the pencils. When I accidentally made an area too light with my eraser taps, I carefully hatched it with a 4B or B pencil until it darkened to the right value.
|
|
Medium Dark Shadows Revisited.
|
Step 8 - I added the final details and value adjustments.
I used my kneaded eraser's pinched point to tap out some of the smaller highlight details (1's, 2's and some 3's) that I'd missed or that had become smudged. For instance, I tapped out a highlight line around the edge of the top right fold and added highlight detail to some of the folds in the middle of the towel. |
|
Left – As seen in last step
Right – Detail added around top right fold and folds in middle of towel.
|
| After carefully comparing my drawing to the towel, I darkened some of the shadow transitions, refined some of the shadow shapes, and blended some areas into each other in a more graduated way. |
Final details and overall value adjustments.
|
|
|
|
