Category: Drawing Lesson

This three dimensional shading exercise is much easier than it looks because it’s created with the same gradation style around each “petal” of the form.

Mental Health Note: There’s no need to finish this drawing in one sitting, and drawings never really have to be perfect. So stay mellow my fellow pencil sisters and brothers. Like nearly everything else in life, drawing is more fun when you’re relaxed.

Supplies
Line Drawing Template Download

You can get a pretty good idea of how I sat up the line drawing by looking at it.

I got lucky and picked the right sized large and small circle templates on the first try, but the trick is that the small circles need to be about the width of one section to fit side by side in larger circle. For the most shapely petals though, make the small circles large enough to overlap each other a little.

To finish the design, I drew an arc from each small circle to the center of the large circle.

Here’s the design with the extra marks erased.

I used a kneaded eraser to lighten the lines as much as I could first, and then used a battery powered eraser to remove the rest. I used the kneaded eraser first as a precaution, because sometimes battery powered erasers smear heavily applied graphite with such force that it leaves an embedded smudge that’s nearly impossible to remove.

I used an HB pencil with a flattened point for the hatching. I wanted to preserve the hatching’s texture so I didn’t use any blending tools. (Blending tools smear hatching.)

Brief Flat Pencil Point How-To

Create a flat pencil point by running it back and forth over scrap paper. Use it by bringing the flat point directly over to the drawing without shifting your grip on the pencil.

A three step process to shade each petal.

1. Draw a dark line around the edge. I don’t normally start a drawing this way, but in this case I wanted the edge around each shape to be the deepest part, and deepest equals darkest in this situation.

In the simple imaginary lighting used for this shape: Light = Up and Dark = Down

2. Shade around the inner edge with a short gradation that lightens near the middle of the petal.

3. Fill in the rest of the shape with a light hatch.

Variations:

• To give a petal more depth, deepen the edge by darkening the outer edge of the gradation.
• A short edge gradation and wide top highlight makes a petal look wide and shallow.
• A smaller top highlight and tall edge gradation makes a petal look taller and more tapered.

A Graceful Ending
To finish, shape a kneaded eraser into a medium round tip and use a tapping motion to lighten the center of each petal.

A tapping motion lifts and lightens the graphite and leaves the texture alone. If you drag or rub the eraser across the hatch, you’ll smudge the texture, and it’ll be hard to make that spot blend in.

To smooth any unevenness or get rid of distracting dark spots, gently tap those areas with a small round or pointed tip.

Here’s a line drawing to download if you want to trace the design. This is a large version that you can reduce to the size you prefer.

Line Drawing Template PDF

Supplies:

I added a couple more pencils so you can experiment with texture and depth.