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Description

OK, It's time to move on to the next level.
A LOT OF INFO IS COMMING BELOW, SO READ CAREFULLY.

Shading, or modelling: what is inside the drawing.
A mark on the sheet is already an expression of two dimensions. The artist's task is to increase these to three or more. Shading and it's intensity is a key to this transformation. - - - Michael J. Gelb.

At the top of the image I'm showing my set of pencils. Choosing the right ones is the first thing an artist should do.
I use a set of 12 pencils called "Grand" + one 8B pencil, which is pure graphite without wooden base.
Since the set is my brother's, I think I'm gonna buy one for myself. Grand is really good, but I think I'll search for Faber-Castell pencils, because as far as I remember, I had those in my childhood and they were always considered of high quality.

A little more on pencils. Basicly, a good pencil should be easily and neatly sharpened. The base should be smooth, not cracking and resulting in an even stroke without scratching. You already should know, or if not - I'm telling you now: B group pencils are softer, used for thicker and richer lines, darker shades. H group pencils are solid, much harder, used for thiner, precise lines, and shading would be quite hard to do with them. HB is a basic, medium soft pencil, found at everyone's home. Mostly used for simple drawing and sketching. Numbers show the scale of softness/hardness. The bigger the number, the softer/harder pencil is.

And having so much different pencils, there is one even more important thing - a good eraser. Here's a few things you should know:
Pencil erasers on the back are the most commonly used, and actually your worst enemies. The erasers on the back of pencils will often smudge the pencil instead of erasing it and make it impossible to be fully erased even by a good eraser.
A lot of pencils have colorful erasers on the end of them (red, green, pink, etc...). Unless you found a very good brand, those will leave a leftover residue from erasing... often the colorful kind... and that can't be removed by anything else, because already stained the paper.
There are a few types of erasers, but I'm not going to write about every of them. I'm using one of "Maped" brand erasers, and I can recommend them. Thay have many to chose from, but I use one, likely the Art Gum type, that is shaving more (which means replacing it more often too), but it erases most of my stuff, even darker lines. Smudges a bit only on a big and dark spots. It's soft , elastic and do not dry, meaning that do not crumble - I have one that was wery useful for precise erasing, but it withered in a month and started crumbling. I'm so highly disappointed of that brand...

OK, NOW THE EXERCISE:
In the middle of the image you can see the scale of shadow intensity I made. I used only 8B to show how one pencil can express different shades. Different pencils will do different shade intensity and give different textures.
So, do a scale for yourself. Basicly it should have 4 to 5 ranks.
Now draw a few spheres. Mark your source of light with a little sun.
Notice a few very slight lines connecting the sun and the spheres. Those are marking the spots where light do not reach the surface. I recommend drawing those while you're still new at this.
Start shading the spheres, using your own earlier made scale of intensity.
Congratulations! You've just stepped into a third dimension.

[link] <<<<<< Exercise 3 ______ Exercise 5 >>>>>> [link]

Tips on drawing >>>>>> [link]

Description

OK, It's time to move on to the next level.
A LOT OF INFO IS COMMING BELOW, SO READ CAREFULLY.

Shading, or modelling: what is inside the drawing.
A mark on the sheet is already an expression of two dimensions. The artist's task is to increase these to three or more. Shading and it's intensity is a key to this transformation. - - - Michael J. Gelb.

At the top of the image I'm showing my set of pencils. Choosing the right ones is the first thing an artist should do.
I use a set of 12 pencils called "Grand" + one 8B pencil, which is pure graphite without wooden base.
Since the set is my brother's, I think I'm gonna buy one for myself. Grand is really good, but I think I'll search for Faber-Castell pencils, because as far as I remember, I had those in my childhood and they were always considered of high quality.

A little more on pencils. Basicly, a good pencil should be easily and neatly sharpened. The base should be smooth, not cracking and resulting in an even stroke without scratching. You already should know, or if not - I'm telling you now: B group pencils are softer, used for thicker and richer lines, darker shades. H group pencils are solid, much harder, used for thiner, precise lines, and shading would be quite hard to do with them. HB is a basic, medium soft pencil, found at everyone's home. Mostly used for simple drawing and sketching. Numbers show the scale of softness/hardness. The bigger the number, the softer/harder pencil is.

And having so much different pencils, there is one even more important thing - a good eraser. Here's a few things you should know:
Pencil erasers on the back are the most commonly used, and actually your worst enemies. The erasers on the back of pencils will often smudge the pencil instead of erasing it and make it impossible to be fully erased even by a good eraser.
A lot of pencils have colorful erasers on the end of them (red, green, pink, etc...). Unless you found a very good brand, those will leave a leftover residue from erasing... often the colorful kind... and that can't be removed by anything else, because already stained the paper.
There are a few types of erasers, but I'm not going to write about every of them. I'm using one of "Maped" brand erasers, and I can recommend them. Thay have many to chose from, but I use one, likely the Art Gum type, that is shaving more (which means replacing it more often too), but it erases most of my stuff, even darker lines. Smudges a bit only on a big and dark spots. It's soft , elastic and do not dry, meaning that do not crumble - I have one that was wery useful for precise erasing, but it withered in a month and started crumbling. I'm so highly disappointed of that brand...

OK, NOW THE EXERCISE:
In the middle of the image you can see the scale of shadow intensity I made. I used only 8B to show how one pencil can express different shades. Different pencils will do different shade intensity and give different textures.
So, do a scale for yourself. Basicly it should have 4 to 5 ranks.
Now draw a few spheres. Mark your source of light with a little sun.
Notice a few very slight lines connecting the sun and the spheres. Those are marking the spots where light do not reach the surface. I recommend drawing those while you're still new at this.
Start shading the spheres, using your own earlier made scale of intensity.
Congratulations! You've just stepped into a third dimension.

[link] <<<<<< Exercise 3 ______ Exercise 5 >>>>>> [link]

Tips on drawing >>>>>> [link]