I’ve recently been facilitating an online drawing course for a high school age home-schooled student (my nephew). One thing that I’ve noticed is that learning to shade and add value to a drawing is difficult. You must learn to SEE it first, then you can draw it. For example, my nephew sent me a drawing of his white car.
It’s a nice drawing, but he has left white/blank every area that is painted white in real life, so it appears flat. Even “white” objects have many different greys in real life to show the form. So, I’ve challenged him to draw a white egg!
This is a video I found that shows and names all the different shadows and lights that you might see on an egg:
And here is a time lapsed demonstration that I made (using a 2B pencil, kneaded eraser, and my finger):
It’s harder than you think! I had to shade, then erase, then shade, then erase, and shade again to get it just where I wanted it- where it matched what I SAW. Give it a try! Go draw an egg!
Love,
Shanda
