Shading and Gradation

Mastering shading and grading techniques is one form of basic pencil drawing techniques. Of course, the gradation shading will help your eye sharpness identify the level of light intensity, so you can see bright and dark areas of objects. Gradient shading exercises are also very useful when you create shadows from objects.

You can practice the gradation shading technique by making a row of squares. The amount is free, it's up to you, as shown below.

After creating a row of squares, shade each square with a different pencil size. For example 2H, H, B, 2B, with the same pressure, you can see the difference in the intensity of light and dark that each pencil produces.

Then shade each square with one type of pencil size. For example, the first square is shaded with a 2H pencil, then the second box is shaded with an H pencil, and so on. 

When shading everything is done with the same pressure. See the difference in the intensity of dark and light that each pencil produces. Then the gradation shading can be generated in another way, namely making several rows of boxes as shown below.

Make several rows of squares, then each row is shaded with the same pencil, for example B pencil, but shaded with a different pressure on each square. You'll find the B pencil can almost match the shadow quality of the 4B pencil.

Then you use several types of pencils, such as B, 4B, and 9B pencils. Color the top row of squares with a B pencil, then shade each square with a different level of pencil pressure. Look at the intensity of dark and light produced with pencil B. Then shade the middle row of squares with pencil 4B, and apply different pressure to each box. Likewise, the bottom row of squares is shaded with a 9B pencil with different pressures.

The dark shading with the strongest pressure produced by the B pencil can almost match the shading quality of the 4B pencil, as well as the 4B pencil with strong pressure that can match the intensity of the 9B dark shading. With a little pressure, the intensity of the shading produced by the 4B pencil can match the intensity of the shading of the B pencil. Do this with various other types of pencils so that your sensitivity level to the intensity of light and dark light on an object increases.

The next exercise, you can try to make a composition of basic shapes, then on each basic shape you give shading with different levels of intensity.

Make boxes of various sizes and shapes that have been distorted. Then arrange the boxes. You can also create shapes using other basic shapes like circles, triangles, and so on. You can arrange these basic shapes in different ways. Try making different types of sketches, look for other shape composition ideas, and choose a sketch that you like.

After sketching the composition of the box shape, prepare various types of pencil sizes, I prefer to use a hard size pencil like H first to give light shadows to the desired box, then in some parts still with the same pencil I apply stronger pressure so as to cast a dark shadow.

After determining which squares I want to shade for the light and dark areas, I use a soft pencil like 2B. You can see in the image below that by shading dark and light, the composition of the box looks like there is volume or depth.

Practicing basic shapes helps you see the difference in the intensity of light and dark in a pencil. Look for other basic shape composition ideas. Shadow gradations can also distinguish the volume of an object.

When you draw an object, you will understand that just by shading the light and dark gradations, the object appears to have different volumes and light intensities.