Pencil shading is a basic drawing skill - whether you're looking for eye-popping realism that precisely controls fine areas of tonal value, or use mark-making and light and dark in expressive, non-representational pieces. Whatever your genre, time spent on observation and creation of value is never wasted.
A common problem for new artists in shading is when they get unwanted changes of tone, or dark bands through what should be a solid area. Mastering the basic techniques will help with this. The challenge for more advanced artists is to really control their range of tone, getting every subtle variation from white to black and all the greys in between. Working on some simple swatches, as in the graded and continuous pencil shading exercise - without trying to draw a subject - addresses this. When you're keen to do 'serious art', exercises can seem like a waste of time, but doing them is a good way to improve your pencil shading and learn to control your values. When doing an exercise, you only focus on creating the marks on the paper, and are free to experiment with pencil selection, pressure and method. The time spent will be doubly repaid when you next set out to create a finished piece of art.
Pencil Shading Tips and Exercises:
Introduction to Pencil Shading - basic techniques
Graded and Continuous Shading - value exercise
Shading an Egg in Graphite Pencil - an essential study
Newspaper Shading - fun value drawing activity
Soft Shading - working from middle values
Graphite Pencil FAQ - choosing and using pencils
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