Last week I started teaching my students all about how light hits form. Ultimately that involves shading. So the question I asked them after their first shading exercise was, are you light handed or heavy handed? There were some insane results. It was a pretty fun exercise.
How about you? When you shade something light in your drawing does it always look a little too dark? How about the opposite? When you are drawing something very dark, for example a characters dark shirt, do you make it look completely too light?
When I was a college student I was super heavy handed. Everything I drew and painted was super dark and super contrasty. Let’s just say I didn’t have a clue about the value ratios. I wasn’t even close to developing my touch yet.
That’s why I wanted to share this video critique with you. It absolutely highlights the need to understand and apply the value ratios.
Try these two simple exercises below.
Practice shading an egg resting on white copy paper. Place it near a window for a soft light source. This is a great exercise to see if you can control your light values. There should be no darks on or near the egg.
Now do the opposite, shade something that is a dark value. It could be something as simple as a dark coffee mug. Once again make sure there is a light source. You definitely want a light side and a shadow side on the object. Apply the value ratio rules spoken to in the video critique. Use middle tones for the light side of the object. The light side should have no whites.
There are many variables. Is the object you are drawing shinny and reflective? Well then there will be very light highlights even on a dark object. So whichever object you choose to draw make sure it has a matte non reflective surface. This will help you be true to the exercise.
Lastly make sure your light source is not too powerful. Don’t use a powerful spotlight. That will change the value ratios as well. A normal lamp or a north facing window would be perfect. If you want to learn more about how to control the value ratios consider a subscription to Drawing Tutorials Online. If painting is your thing we have an extensive list of tutorials covering this topic over at our sister site Painting Tutorials Online.
Let us know what you think. Leave a comment below..
Most artists don’t really think about gesture when it comes to portrait drawing. Recently during a video critique session I noticed a recurring theme. It was the missing ingredient in three separate images. The portrait drawings were are pretty cool. They were all just missing that loose gestural quality.
It’s so very easy to get caught up in all of the typical portrait drawing techniques. Drawing techniques like angles, value matching shading etc etc. I know I do all the time. Gesture is equally important. It places the head on the shoulders in a natural way. It helps you to focus on the tilt of the head and shoulders. Sometimes this can be very subtle.
Just being conscious of incorporating or at least just seeing gesture when you are about to start a portrait drawing is huge.
Let’s say you are starting to work on a portrait drawing. You have set aside a few hours on your Saturday to dive into rendering and shading. Take a moment at the beginning of the drawing to complete a quick portrait gesture sketch at the top corner of your piece of paper. This will help you to find the big gesture lines.
You certainly don’t have to spend a lot of time of this. Again this is all about trying to loosen up your portrait drawings. It’s about seeing the movement of the head and shoulders in tandem.
So the next time you start a portrait drawing, find the gesture of the head. This drawing technique could be a difference maker in the quality and feel of your next drawing.
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Are you really good at drawing portraits? Are you pretty good at drawing a likeness of the person too? However there is that one little thing about your portrait drawing that does not look quite right. Perhaps there is a dark under the person’s eye.
However in reality if they had that dark under their eye they would have a bruised eye?
The dirty little secret about drawing killer portraits is being able to match values.
Back in the day when I first started painting book covers for various publishing companies I struggled big time with matching values. I would drop off a painting and the art director would tell me the face was too light. Or perhaps the forehead was too dark. I really struggled big time with simply being able to match the values on the persons face.
On a book cover this was a huge deal.
If the character on the cover looked like they had a black eye, well that wasn’t cool.
So the first place to start is to mainly be conscious of the value scale. For those of you who are members of Drawing Tutorials Online we have multiple tutorials on how to match the value scale.
Being aware of the value scale comes first. Then practicing matching the values on the value scale comes second. You might be super heavy handed which means your light values will look dark. Or you might be light handed which means your dark values will look too light.
You get where I am going with this?
Here is a profound statement. “All of drawing realistically in tone is being able to match the value of any particular shape”. If you can draw a shape and match it’s value you are golden.
That shape could be the shadow under the nose or the white of the eye.
So the next time you draw a portrait be highly aware of the the values. If you are attempting to draw a realistic portrait constantly analyze the values of shapes. Keep your value scale nearby, it’s a life saver.
It sounds so trivial, drawing shadow shapes. But the fact is a lot of artists struggle with drawing, or shading in shadow shapes. A different term for this is “blocking in”. Some artists simply just don’t see shadows. They cannot see blocks of tone.
We’re all good at one thing right? I have always had an easy time of seeing shadows shapes. Line however was really tough for me. How about you, do see more with line instead of tone?
The goal is to become balanced with the way we see. Of course you can make something really dimensional with just line. However when you can add line with tone things get a little more interesting.
For those of you who struggle with seeing the proper shadow value here are a couple of tips.
Always squint at your reference to see the simple shadow and light shapes. Squinting takes away all of the detail.
Go into every drawing, if you are trying to draw with tone, understanding there should always be a three value set up. Try to structure your drawings with a dark, middle tone and light value. This will force you be more conscious of shadow shapes.
Ask yourself the question, where is the light coming from? If you understand your light source, you will ultimately understand where the shadow shapes are.
Lastly, shade your shadow shapes with a solid tone. Don’t let patches of white paper show through, this will muddy up your lights and darks.
If you enjoyed watching the critiques I would encourage you to get your drawings looked at. Sometimes we get so close to our own artwork that we cannot see what we are struggling with. Worst yet we don’t know how to get past the roadblock.
