Drawing: Faces & Features

Mastering Shading Techniques

The key to transforming flat, simple shapes into convincing, lifelike forms is employing a variety of shading techniques. Shade with soft strokes to create lighter tones, or put more pressure on your pencil and shade with heavy strokes to create darker tones. These contrasts in value (the relative lightness or darkness of a color or of black) are what give depth and form to your drawings. Once you’ve established the basic shape of your subject, try using the shading techniques in this section to apply dark and light values to your drawings—and watch your subjects come to life on paper!

Creating Depth

Separating the dark values of your shading from the light areas and highlights of your drawing helps produce a sense ...