RS101 Traditional Shading

With Mike Sibley

6 weeks   Shading 4

Traditional realism is a style of art in which living beings and objects are represented in an artwork as they appear in real life – without stylization or distortion. Traditional realism suggests the edges (contours) of drawing subjects with shading rather than outlining the edges with lines (as in a coloring book).

This course is designed to enable absolute beginners and experienced artists to:

• discover how highlights, shadows, reflected light, and cast shadows help create the illusion of a three-dimensional reality on a flat sheet of paper
• prepare five grades of pencils with a chisel point for traditional shading, and then use them to shade value scales
• outline straight-sided shapes and add shading with four grades of pencils
• examine values on drawing subjects to find clues that identify the direction of a light source
• learn a four-step process to help you plan an appropriate method for adding shading to a drawing
• outline three shapes and their value maps, and then use graduated shading to turn a circle, cube, and rectangle into realistic three-dimensional forms
• use traditional shading techniques and five grades of pencils to render a threedimensional form
• sketch the proportions of a plant, practice a step-by-step process used to add traditional shading, and then add realistic textured and patterned shading

View the course outline (PDF)