Below are lessons I teach my art students. I teach at the Pennsylvania State University CFAC, University Park. These lessons contain rules that are simple and exercises that are easy to do. Yet they have a great impact on your art. Try them.
SHADING
Before you start to draw remember that light travels in a straight line. Recall how to shade simple objects like spheres, cylinders and cubes. And don't worry about the materials you use. I use a 4B pencil only, regular drawing paper, a white eraser and a kneaded eraser.
| 1. | Find the brightest light |
| Look for the brightest light that illuminates your subject. Outside the brightest light usually comes from the sun. Inside it could come from an overhead light, or a day-lit window. | |
| 2. | Find where the brightest light bounces off your subject first |
| Generally, light bounces off a subject first where the subject is closest to the light. If you're drawing a table near a day-lit window, for example, light will bounce off the area of the table nearest the window first. In reality it will bounce off just one spot first. That spot splits the shortest distance between the light, the table and your eyes. This spot or "first bounce" is where your subject will be the brightest.
As your subject stretches away from the light it will become gradually darker until the darkest spot where the light bounces off last. Both areas of light and of shadow become darker farther away from the light. |
|
| 3. | Shadows are darkest where objects meet |
Where one object meets another like a table leg meets the floor, the shadow will be darkest of all. And from this meeting point the shadow will gradually lighten toward the shadow's edge. Most all shadows lighten this way as they become more interrupted by reflected light.
|
|
| EXERCISE - Find a piece of fruit or any similar-sized object. Place your object on a piece of white poster paper. Fold half of the poster paper up in the back and support it from behind to create a standing backdrop. Then light your object two feet from the front and two feet to the right with a spot light or a lamp. Tilt the lamp shade toward the object. Whatever lighting you choose, be sure to shield your eyes from the light. Then draw! |
COMPOSITION
First, remember to focus on a subject or aspect of a subject that you like. Maybe you like the look of an entire table or just the knotted grain. Whatever your focus, be sure to place that prominently on your paper. And then imagine your 2D object has weight like its 3D counterpart does in reality. And imagine that color and shadow have weight too. White space is weightless.
| 1. | Unbalanced |
| Compositions can be unbalanced. For example, if you drew a table in the bottom left corner of a piece of paper, its weight would appear to drag that corner down. If you then stuck a pin in the center of this drawing and stuck it to the wall, the table would pull on the paper so much the paper would spin and wind up pointing table down. And then if you spun the paper like a pinwheel, it would wobble.
Unbalanced compositions are used to express good and bad strong feelings. Your table, for example, looks lonely.  
|
|
| 2. | Balanced |
| Compositions can be balanced. For example, if you added a patch of shading gradation to the right of your drawing from the previous example, your drawing would appear to even out. If you then spun your drawing on a pin like above, it would spin evenly and even wind up level when it stopped spinning.
Balanced compositions are used to express comfortable feelings. Now your table looks at home.  
|
|
| EXERCISE - Look at a group of objects like leaves on a tree or bricks in a wall, in real life or in a photo. Focus on only a few of the objects that catch your eye, ones that you like. Draw them prominently on your paper in either a balanced or an unbalanced composition. Try following the shading rules described in the "shading" lesson. |
Submit a drawing to the forum for peer review ⇒
Submit a drawing to me for a critique ⇒
