A great trick to have your pencil drawing look full of life is if you are using shading. This will create the illusion of depth and space.
No matter what type of instruments you are using for drawing, you can depict shadows and light. Next I will be talking more about pencil, charcoal and pastel drawings but you can apply it to your medium as well.
Pencils that use graphite lead have written on them different numbers and letters. Depending on their hardness, they are ranging from 9H that has the hardest lead, to 9B, which is the softest.
Using different levels of hardness as well as adjusting the pressure you apply, you can control how dark or light the pencil marks are.
Tones or values refer to the intensity of color. When drawing with graphite or charcoal different tones refers to how light or dark a shade of gray is. I usually use charcoal if I need a pure black and when I need white I will either leave the paper blank (I’m normally drawing on white paper) or use a white crayon (especially for reflections).
With different tones we can represent the shape and volume of an object in a realistic way instead of a simple hard line that will make it look flat. Try and observe which parts of your subject are lighter and which are darker and focus on recreating them accordingly. Instead doing it with simple lines that will make it appear flat, you can use tonal transitions when drawing realistic hair.
For shading you can use the pencil holding it sideways so that a greater surface of the tip will come into contact with your paper. For this it’s best to have your pencil well sharpen or you could even cut the wood with a kitchen knife or cutter to reveal more lead.
You can shade either by holding the pencil from the end and moving just your wrist or holding it under your palm, between your thumb and digits and move your whole forearm.
The movement of the pencil can be sideways, in circles or crosshatching. These are some of the more common techniques but you can use whatever suits you best.
With shading you can also start building up layers. This means you are not putting in the exact tones but rather you start covering it in very light tones and move on with darker and darker ones until you are satisfied. I think this is a good approach especially for beginners that don’t yet have a feel of tones as it will allow them to adjust as they go.
When trying to draw a realistic subject you will notice that although you did everything right, it still looks like it was drawn. That is mostly because you can see the pencil strokes. A great solution for this problem is blending your medium.
Blending can make your surfaces appear smoother and the transition between the tones less harsh.
To blend your drawing you can use a variety of methods, from your own fingers (though I don’t recommend it) to specially created blending stumps found in art stores. Of course you can also improvise (my favorite) and do it using different materials such as paper tissues or pieces of cloth.
Another thing to consider is the contrast between the dark areas and the light ones. If you darken an area too much, the other areas will appear too light due to the contrast and the whole piece will feel unbalanced.
One trick I sometimes use is to start with the darkest spots. This way I can adjust the other values depending on this and not end up when I’m about to finish the drawing that everything looks too light.
