Shading is an essential part of sketching. As Bowater states "Shading techniques are very important and prevent your sketches from looking flat" (31). Which is quite true because the contrast from the dark and the light help your sketches look more realistic and natural. The simplest shading technique are regular and hatching lines. When using this method the line should be parallel and all you do it move your tool left to right or up and down. This technique is the commonly used and can be used on almost every type of drawing says Bowater (31). You can often see this technique when shading in skin, values, backgrounds, and etc. I have shown this style by drawing a circle and and using this technique to fill in. You can see how it adds a little more dimension to a simple circle.
The next technique I will be talking about is cross- hatching. It is very similar to regular/hatching lines except you layer the lines on top of each other. In Bowater's words " cross-hatching involves one set of lines crossing over another set, creating volume" (32). Which is the simplest way to define this technique and give sense of of how to do. As you can see I started with another circle and I first did the basic hatching lines (which is the technique mentioned up) then I made another set of lines perpendicular to create the cross- hatching effect. Bowater suggests finding an angle that seems natural and work consistently when cross- hatching (32). I believe this is important because when the strokes feel more natural it is easier to shade in your sketches and have a better overall result.
Finally the last technique I would like to cover is circular shading. This technique uses the overlapping of a circular pattern and is very similar to when we scribble/fill in objects except this has the presence of a circular pattern. This is a great way to give more of a solid appearance as well as blend different colors in when sketching in color. You can see that I did this in another circle as I have been doing in my previous examples and you can notice that when you use circular shading you can find see some of the circular pattern mentioned above.
Now these are only 3 shading techniques, there are several other shading techniques and all have a different ways of enhancing your sketches and bringing them to life.
Do you think when shading you should find an angle that feels natural and not just in cross- hatching but any type of shading technique?And why?
Bowater, Charlie. Beginner's Guide to Sketching: Characters, Creatures & Concepts. 3DTotal Publishing, 2015.
