Pen and Ink Sketching: 6 Shading Techniques

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Are you confident with your skill level creating outline sketches and feel ready to start giving them a sense of three-dimensionality and form? Do you find all of the information out there about different shading techniques a bit overwhelming and, perhaps, are unsure about which one(s) you should be using in your work? Is it even necessary to know about all of them?


​I find sketching with pen and ink incredibly refreshing in between larger projects. A couple of the things I love about this artistic medium are that it challenges me to think about the intention behind each line or mark I create, and that I have to work around mistakes in order to complete each piece. 

You see, as opposed to sketching or drawing with pencil, ink cannot be erased!

In today's blog post, I'm going to share my favorite six of ways of shading and adding three-dimensionality to pen and ink sketches. I'll explain how to go about using each technique, as well as some points I consider positives and negatives about each.

This way, you'll have more of an idea of when you could be using them in your own work and you'll avoid creating effects that you weren't intending to create. 

It's important to understand that, when using these techniques, we are creating marks and lines. By repeating marks and lines we not only create value, but also a certain visual texture.

If we're not mindful about how we draw these marks, we can create effects in a piece that are too distracting and that don't really help describe our subject effectively.

In this post we're focusing a bit more on value because this is what is going to help us give our sketches a sense of believable form.


Though the techniques I will describe below are different, these two principles apply to all of them:

a) The more marks created= The more ink is covering the surface (paper)= The darker the value
b) The less marks created= The less ink is covering the surface (paper)= The lighter the value

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I highly recommend checking out this past blog post of mine:
Guide to Shading Techniques: Hatching, Crosshatching, Scribbling and Others

In it, I go over why being able to discern between lights, mid-tones and darks in a reference image is essential and also provide specific examples of hatching, crosshatching and scribbling in old masters' work. This post also includes a few free downloadable pdfs with useful exercises for you to practice with!

It's important for you to know that it's ultimately going to be up to you to explore these mark-making techniques and decide which ones you prefer. How you use them (and combine them) is going to depend on your own preferences, as well as the style you're going for. 

If you enjoyed this video and found it helpful, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel. I share a brand new video every week with art tips, drawing and painting tutorials and mindset/productivity tips for artists. *Subscribe HERE*


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Exploring Mark-Making and Shading Techniques

​1. Hatching

Hatching- Shading technique

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​This technique entails creating sets of straight parallel lines. The direction of these lines doesn't really matter. You can decide whether you want to draw them horizontally, vertically or diagonally (at any angle). 

However, you do have to make sure that there is a consistency between each of your sets, especially in terms of the distance that you're leaving between your lines and their overall direction.

​This doesn't mean they have to be absolutely perfect, but you do need to stay mindful of what your doing!

Positives:
-It is a very fast way of giving a subject a sense of form, especially geometric shapes and subjects composed primarily of geometric shapes (think houses, buildings and furniture).

Negatives:
-You do have to be somewhat confident drawing straight lines.
-Because we are drawing straight lines, this could lead to a certain "flatness" in areas that aren't really meant to be flat, which means we have to be extra careful when using this technique when drawing organically shapes objects with curves in them (think human form, a piece of fruit, etc.).
​*Look for examples of hatching/crosshatching in portraits and still lifes online to see how it can be successfully done. 

2. Cross-Hatching

Cross-hatching- Shading technique

​This technique is very similar to hatching, but it entails creating a second set of straight parallel lines on top of the first. This second set of lines can be drawn in any angle or direction you'd like, as long as you pick an angle and keep it consistent throughout.

​Remember to focus on the distance that you leave between your lines and their overall direction.

Positives: 
-You can very naturally combine hatching with cross-hatching, as the addition of your second sets of lines can create your darker values.
-It is a very fast way of giving a subject a sense of form, especially geometric shapes and subjects composed primarily of geometric shapes (think houses, buildings and furniture).

Negatives: 
-You do have to be somewhat confident drawing straight lines.
-Because we are drawing straight lines, this could lead to a certain "flatness" in areas that aren't really meant to be flat, which means we have to be extra careful when using this technique when drawing organically shapes objects with curves in them (think human form, a piece of fruit, etc.).
​*Look for examples of hatching/crosshatching in portraits and still lifes online to see how it can be successfully done. 

3. Contour Lines

Contour Lines- Shading technique

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Cylinder sketch showing contour lines

Sphere sketch showing contour lines

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To create contour lines, it's essential to think about the subject's form and volume before laying down any lines. Contour lines accentuate the curves in subjects that are rounded or more organically shaped.

Notice how, in the sketches above, the versions with curved lines help translate a cylinder and a sphere's form much better than the ones with the straight lines. 

As opposed to hatching and cross-hatching lines, we're not replicating the same line over and over again, but seamlessly transforming our curved lines to better emphasize the rounded and convex/concave areas of our subjects.

​Contour lines transform throughout a drawing following the natural curves of our subject, and the perspective/angle we're viewing the object at will affect what these lines look like. 

Positives: 
-With some practice and efficient visualization, it's a very fast way of giving a sketch of organically shaped subjects (think of the human figure or a piece of fruit)  a sense of realistic form.

Negatives: 
-It requires a certain amount of visualization.
-If you stop paying attention to what you're doing for even a short amount of time, your drawing is not going to be very successful. 

4. Weaving

Weaving- Shading technique

To create a weaving pattern, draw shorter sets of intersecting/interlocking lines. These sets of lines can have a specific organized pattern to them, or they can be placed in a more random manner.

​Simply start by laying down your first set of lines anywhere you'd like, and then start adding more sets around that line in a varied enough angle that they look like they're intersecting with each other.

Positives: 
-This mark-making technique creates a very appealing visual texture which is very easy to achieve.

Negatives: 
-It requires a certain amount of concentration just to create a "weaving" effect, which may take away from our focus when trying to achieve adequate value placement.
-The high level of texture created may be too distracting when drawing certain subjects.



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5. Stippling

Stippling- Shading technique

Stippling requires us to lay down a huge amount of dots. We have to be mindful and do this calmly, as trying to rush generally leads to creating ticks (small lines) instead of dots, which leads to inconsistency in our marks. 

​Positives: 
-This technique can create amazingly realistic drawings of pretty much any kind of subject. 
-We have a lot of control because the marks are so small and the technique it itself forces us to take our time with it. 

Negatives: 
-It can be EXTREMELY time consuming and tiring. 
-Creating so many dots may lead to damaging the tip of our drawing pen. 

6. Scribbling

Scribbling- Shading technique

Pen and ink tree study by Erika Lancaster

​To do effective scribbling, relax your hand and allow it to move naturally and organically. Don't focus on creating any specific kinds of shapes or lines, but more on loops and variety.

​Practice changing the pressure you're exerting on your paper as you want to deepen values and let your hand go.

​Positives: 
-Once you're comfortable with this technique, it is a very easy way of achieving a visual effect of small, overlapping natural elements, that require more irregularity in them (think of leaves, plants and curly hair).

Negatives: 
-It can be easy to go overboard since we are letting our hand have a mind of its own. I recommend taking breaks and stepping back every now and then. 

​*Find free downloadable PDFs to practice your mark-making and value transitions at the end of this post! 

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Staedtler Pigment Liners Assorted Sizes

Strathmore Bristol Paper Vellum Surface

Pigma Micron Pens Assorted Sizes

LePen Pens Assorted Sizes

Shading Simple Geometric Shapes

Shading a cube using different pen and ink techniques.

The absolute best way to get started with actual shading is to begin with simple geometric shapes that are formed by flat planes (cubes, rectangular prisms, triangular prisms).

It's important to decide where your light source is going to be located before you begin so that you can then decide where your lightest, medium and darkest planes are going to be. 

Take a moment to observe the cubes above. Can you tell which side is the lightest, which is the darkest and which is the in-between value? Judging by the placement of these values, where would you say the light source is located?

Need help drawing three-dimensional geometric shapes? No problem! Go to my blog post titled Perspective for Beginners: How to Use 1 and 2 Point Perspectives to find free downloadable pdfs with step-by-step instructions.

If you'd like to practice specifically shading cubes and don't feel like drawing them, download the free pdf at the end of this post!

Once you're successful with shading flat-sided geometric shapes, move on to geometric shapes that contain curves in them (spheres, cylinders, cones, etc.).

​Only after you have practiced these enough, should you move on to more complex subjects.

Stay tuned for the next post, because we'll be discussing how to use each of these techniques to describe the form of a piece of fruit!


*Free downloadables!

value_transitions_shading.pdf
File Size:	3572 kb
File Type:	pdf

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drawing_marks_lines.pdf
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shading_3d_shapes.pdf
File Size:	1909 kb
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