Clean Doodling in Pen and Ink: How to Shade Without Making Mud

1. Welcome to Shading Essentials: My name's Chloe. I'm a learning specialist turned full time artist. Pen and ink is the medium I'm passionate about, and I've designed this class to answer. The number one question I get asked on the Internet is how to make consistent, actionable progress drawing with pen and ink. And more specifically, how to draw cleanly without making mud. If you've ever wondered why some doodles look like masterpieces, even though they're essentially just scribbles, well, the answer has to do with shading. Drawing is a skill, and, yeah, it can take forever to master shading is a technique, and technique is something that anyone can learn and apply right away. With pen and ink, shading goes a long way to making a drawing look really good. The class is structured in three progressive stages where you'll quickly learn what instantly makes a doodle more readable. The focus will be on practice so that you can experience how the techniques work, giving you more control over how your drawings will turn out. We'll go through a sequence of exercises in small achievable projects to gain confidence through repetition. Whether you're just starting out with pen and ink or looking for guidance on where to go next with your practice, I believe you'll be amazed at how much progress you can make in such a short time with just a few fundamental techniques. You don't need prior drawing experience. You just need to believe in yourself because even though I place emphasis on technique, we'll not be using references or templates. We're just doodling together freehand, straight to ink from theory to action in creative ways. I'm here to present options, not standards. I've developed a simple approach that makes Penink easy to understand. If you see my work on social media, you know that I love to illustrate in detail, intricate realistic style. But before I get to that stage, I do tons of experimental doodling. In that doodling process, I gain confidence to tackle more ambitious projects, and that's what you'll learn in this class. I'll show you what each technique does when you would use it, and how to make your drawings look clean. For supplies, of course, use what you have on hand. I do recommend a smooth finish inking paper and one or two inking pens. I will go through the supplies in more details, especially if you're just getting into pen and ink, and you're really looking for what tools and materials to get. By the end of this class, you'll know a lot about shading techniques and how they can bring clarity to your drawings and the confidence to keep progressing beyond this class. Thank you so much for joining me. Let's get started. 2. Pen and Ink Supplies: For supplies, you'll find the list of my recommended tools and materials in the PDF handout, as well as other helpful resources. The lessons, you'll need a smooth finish inking paper and one or two pens. Now, I'll be using a single pen. I'm using what's called a sponge tip Calligraphy Pen that makes both thin and thick lines in one stroke. If you don't have a similar pen, then you'll want a medium tip size for all the shading marks that we'll be doing and a thicker marker type pen for filling in the solid blacks. This is all the information you need to get started, then go ahead and skip to the next lesson. If you're new to Penan or looking to shop for supplies, then stick around. I have recommendations. Put away your ruler, eraser and pencil. We're going straight to ink. The number one question I get asked on the Internet is what kind of pen I use. The type of pen makes a difference, but what matters most is the paper. The surface of the paper is what has the most impact on your results. Look for a smooth finish hot press paper. The brand and format, they matter less. Anything in the 80 to 150 pound range is great because you can use it for both exercises and finish projects. Sketching paper is okay as long as it's fine tooth surface. So brands like Strathmore are categorized by quality. They use a number 202 500 series, 2-300 is the student grade, 400 and up is the professional grade. Avoid using textured paper because it eats your pens, and the ink will streak, smudge, it will apply unevenly and not be opaque. This is especially true if you're interested in using brushes or dip pens in the future. A smooth finish is always best for ink. Paper labeled as a bristle smooth or bristle vellum or even a mixed media paper is good and it can be used with inking tools, and it plays well with other mediums as well when you mix them. These come in a pad or a book format, and that is whatever you prefer. For this class, I'm using a bristle vellum of nine by 12 sheets. I'll be using about four to six sheets. It really depends on the size and format that you have and how many sheets you'll be needing. In general, I use a smooth finish, student grade paper for studies and exercises, and I save my higher grade sheets for my nicer projects. My preferred doodling pens have a sponge tip with a medium hard or soft point. Avoid those long floppy tips and hair like bristle brushes. Those are for painting, and they are more challenging to control. Make sure that the pens you use have an ink pigment in them so that the ink doesn't show through on paper. Like in your sketchbooks, that's really annoying. So, have a look at the handout for that information, and in the next lesson, we'll talk about what makes a good doodle. 3. Great Doodles Vs Mud: To be good at drawing, the advice we generally get is to draw from observation, either from life or from photo reference. If you're aiming for a realistic style, then being able to draw shapes accurately becomes the most significant fundamental to practice. Shape is what defines a subject. It's the visual container, the edges of what we see. But getting good at drawing shapes is a lifelong journey. Sometimes you just want to quickly capture what's in your head on paper, or you want to quickly sketch out your ideas or explore concepts with effective thumbnails. In that context, being able to shade your doodles is a great help because a great doodle will more accurately represent your ideas. And that's useful because anyone looking at your doodle will know exactly what it is and be able to appreciate it. You can refer back to your thumbnails, and thanks to your effective shading, your doodles become a lot easier to refine into more finished project or finished illustrations. And perhaps that doodle approach becomes your signature drawing style. Like the historically influential masters who have made that doodle style legendary Heinrich Cl, Charles Dana Gibson. So what makes a great doodle? Two things confidence and clarity. Confidence means being intentional with your mark making. Intention leads to clarity. For example, you may be familiar with the term chicken scratches, and fair enough, when sketching, using a pencil, we're constructing a drawing. We're trying to find the best lines. Then go over them with an inking pen. At the end, the pencil lines get erased. No one sees the chicken scratches that lead to the finished artwork. When doodling, the objective is to quickly capture what you see or what's in your head. So why not take that opportunity to go straight to ink? With ink, each mark on the paper communicates something to the viewer. This doesn't mean each mark must be perfectly executed. A confident mark is more about economy. If you can use one intentional stroke instead of a bunch of tentative ones, then this communicates confidence. For example, in this doodle, note how in the foreground, the master used only a few confident strokes to describe blades of grass. Confidence leads to clarity. Is clarity. Clarity is when you can immediately at a glance, read a drawing. Your brain automatically understands what's going on in the composition. Even though there's no refinement or details here, all of these marks are there to suggest what you see. We can very quickly identify what the objects are, what the subjects are doing, what's in front in the picture plane, and what's positioned further away. With Penini, you're working with black marks and white space. And without shading techniques, objects that are drawn in front of one another or behind, can turn to MD and just be confusing. In the following lessons we'll progress through shading techniques. You'll learn what makes a doodle instantly more readable and gain confidence with your skills through repetition. Starting with shading combinations. 4. Stage 1 – Shading Combinations: In the previous lesson, I mentioned that with pen and ink, we're working with black and white. In this picture plane, we have a subject in the foreground, some mountains in the middle ground, and the third layer is the sky further in the background. The trick is to alternate the overlapping layers, light over dark or dark over light. Combinations that use solid black or solid white work well for silhouette drawing styles. Some are simple and others more complex. Some combinations of black and white don't work. Like the foreground and the background overlap in a way that makes inking it overly complex to execute with clarity. If we otherwise look at black and white as values, then white means 100% in the light, and Black means it gets 0% no light. Either the object is in shadow or that object is actually a darker color. Somewhere in the middle we get a gray value. This gives us more options. The overlap principles remain the same, alternating between lighter and darker values, except now we have a third option with this 50% gray. In this example, I rendered the gray value using strokes. All going in the same direction. It works if you alternate the layers, but our doodle turns to mud if you go gray over gray. You might encounter this problem when drawing from observation. In this photo, the fallow is a black silhouette. The mountains are also solid black and the sky has lots of white, and the remainder of the environment is gray. Visually, we can read this doodle because of how the main subject is framed in the composition. In the second photo, the fallow is gray on top of gray with more of the same gray, and now I have mud. A solution to this problem is to vary the stroke direction. Same, 50% intensity of gray, but by alternating the stroke angles, the overlaps become clearer to see. This stays true no matter what combinations you use to shade your doodle. So if our guy was wearing a green shirt, the exact same green as the background, we could still doodle the subject convincingly in pen and ink by simply varying the stroke direction. Ah, but it still takes a few seconds for the brain to separate the foreground from the background. It almost looks like he has wings. A solution to this is to vary the levels of gray. Spread the strokes further apart for a 25% gray. Closer together and bolder for a 75% gray. Same stroke direction, but alternating the gray levels in each overlap, and we gain more clarity. We can get even more options by using a full range of grays combined with strokes that alternate directions. The key to preserving clarity when mixing stroke direction and values is making sure that the value levels all match in the same intensity. So all the level twos match one another, all the level three, and so on, regardless of the stroke angle, keeping in mind that having too many options can turn badly. But if you plan your values, then you'll get great doodles. So just black and white gives us less options, but it's easier to make things clear. Then we gradually gain more options, but also more planning is required to keep things clear. These shading combination techniques are very useful when planning out illustration projects. As we saw from these two reference photos, we discovered potential problems by doing the thumbnail experiments. Regardless of the illustration style that you're interested in, Dole or more calculated like a Franklin Booth. Even Master Booth starts every projects by shading thumbnail sketches. Grab your supplies in the next lesson, you'll practice all these shading combinations. 5. Stage 1 – Values Chart Practice: You'll now create your own shading combination chart. Keep this chart when it's done. It will be a useful guide for all the lessons and any future projects. In your sketchbook or on a sheet, at the top left hand corner, draw a small rectangle. Leave it white, add another next to it, and fill it with 25% gray using thin diagonal strokes. In the rectangle next to it, bring the strokes closer together, using a bit of pressure on the pen to create bolder lines. Then even more pressure for thicker lines. If you're using fine liner pens for the thicker strokes, just go over the lines a couple times and finish in the last rectangle with solid black. Earlier, I mentioned that white gets 100% of the light. White means a highlight because it's also closest to the light source. The further your subject is from the light source, the darker it gets. Solid black says the subject is blocked from the light and in shadow. This is called a value scale. It shows progressive levels of grace from light to dark. Go ahead and create another five level scale below it. Switch the direction of strokes from the scale above and match the level two value. Add another below it. This time with horizontal strokes, repeat the next scale using vertical strokes. Go ahead and fill the other value levels on your own, and I'll see you on the next lesson to continue with our shading combination chart. 6. Stage 1 – Shading Combinations Project: Our value scale has five levels. You'll see inking styles that use two to three values, so black, white, and a few rendering strokes. Some styles go all the way to 12 values, but five levels, as we have here, is plenty for doodling. Let's draw our screamer fellow together. The first combination is light over dark. Repeat the same drawing. Oh, oops, I made a bobo on this one. Now, dark over light. Repeat the drawing a third time and leave it blank for now. Next row, column one, combo, light over dark using value level three, diagonal direction slanting to the right. Referring to the first value scale, repeat the drawing in the next two columns and label the shading combination for the second row. In the third row, again, starting with light over dark shading combination is still value three, but we can use any stroke direction as long as it's at value level three. In the fourth row, first column, multiple value levels, one stroke direction, starting light on dark. Last row has multiple values and multiple stroke directions. You don't have to use every single option. It just gives you extra possibilities to explore. For your mini project, go ahead and complete the shading combinations for your chart. I'll see you in the next lesson and we can progress to stage two from there. No. 7. Stage 2 – Light and Shadow Practice: Now that you've completed your shading combination chart, which may look different than mine. We can use that as a baseline to talk about light and shadow. The lighting starts to matter more when drawing objects in three dimensions. With our light source on the top left hand corner, according to our value scale, white is the closest to the light, then progressively darker further from the light. Solid black for the shadows. The same principles from the previous exercise apply here with the stroke direction. If the value levels make sense, the brain registers that the object is three D regardless of stroke direction. The thing is, we do not see objects. What is visible to us is the lighting. Most objects produce no light. Their visibility depends on the amount of light reflected from them. So as an artist, how you use lighting and shading can reveal a lot about your subject. When I turn our box into a house, I'll shade the parts that are furthest from the light and obstruct it from the light, the front door, the roof, the side windows, the roof overhang, and the shadow the house casts on the ground plane. The ground plane plays a bigger role when your subject is part of a composition. Saw earlier that different stroke directions and value levels bring more clarity when using overlaps to describe a foreground, a middle ground, and a background. We said the light communicates by reflecting on the object. So how does the light source interact with those layers? The solution with pen and ink is to create gradations. Your marks fade from light to dark. Use solid black for whatever's blocked from the light, and from there, you can make decisions about how you want to shade the overlaps using the techniques that we practiced in the previous lessons. The only difference is how those layers of gray interact with the direction of light. In your sketchbook or exercise sheet, wherever you have space, draw a rectangle and shade it using diagonal strokes. This time in a gradation from level one to level five value, then with vertical strokes. Diagonal in the other direction. For horizontal strokes, the techniques for a gradual fade effect using lines is slightly different, but not complicated. You add lines between the lines to build the shading. Repeat the exercise without the rectangle to get a feel for it. In your sketchbook or on a new sheet or wherever you have space for it, draw a picture frame, a box in the center of it, and add a ground plane. One more time. Using any of the stroke layering combinations and the gradation of values that we just practice, go ahead and shade these two mini compositions on your own. Pause the lesson for now, complete the exercise, then press plate when you're ready to continue. Welcome back. We'll draw the house composition now. Pause the video and shade those as well. We'll review the exercises together when you're done. First, we created a shading chart using different combinations of value levels and stroke directions. The purpose was to bring clarity when objects overlap in a composition. We then looked at shading three dimensional objects based on the source of light. We then used various gradations of values, which not only gave us a foreground, middle ground and background, I gave our doodles a sense of depth. So more clarity. Let's talk about round subjects because light reflects differently based on the shape of the object. The linear shading techniques we've used so far make this subject look flat. One solution is to leave white space to indicate a highlight. Curve your strokes around the form, and it becomes a sphere. Add a gradation of values and the doodle looks pretty convincing. Let's practice the gradual value scale using curve strokes in different directions. We talked a lot about how to bring clarity to your doodles using shading techniques, and we've done many repetitions to train for more confident strokes. Circles are more challenging, so let's take a moment here. The trick is to hold your pen vertically and lock your wrist, aim to close the loop. Avoid crossing lines. It's hard to fix a circle with cross lines. It's better to leave a gap. A gap can be easily fixed to close the loop. With that in mind, let's practice shading our round subjects. A circle for the head, triangles for the ears. A tube for the neck, big circle for the body. I touch some arms and triangles for the hands. Oh, another tube for the leg and the second leg smaller, so it looks like he's walking and attach some feet. We'll put some black under the chin under the belly, and this hand would be all in shadow with the light source on the top left hand corner. So the values fade light to dark, left to right on the subject, and we're using curved strokes. Do another shading variation. We'll give this guy a slightly longer neck, so the cast shadow is more obvious. I use stronger highlights and deeper shadows. More contrast makes the subject look more round. Go ahead and shade the third fellow on your own. In the next lesson, we'll do a mini project Shading round subjects and compositions. 8. Stage 2 – Light and Shadow Project: I hope you had fun shading your round character. I'm using a new sheet because we're going to fill the page, starting with a vertical rectangle as our picture plane. Draw a similar character to the one we practiced before. Add a ground plane, also known as a Horizon line and the mountains, similar to the ones from our shading combination chart. The light source remains on the top left hand corner for all the lessons. Start with the cast shadows using solid black. Then a diagonal curve, gradual stroke, light to dark for the character's body. I switched the stroke direction for the arms. The curve degree is less pronounced on the pants, which makes his belly look more round in comparison. I am referring back to our shading combination chart to help me decide on the values and stroke direction options for these overlaps. The only difference is we're incorporating the gradation of values and using curve strokes to shade whatever is round. We're just building on the principles we've already practiced. While we're here, repeat a similar composition underneath. You can change a character's appearance, if you like. For the shading, we're repeating what we've learned so far. But don't be afraid to get more creative with the doodles. Go ahead and shade this one on your own. Let's do a bunny, a semicircle for the head. In the gap, we place a big ear. Close the loop with the second ear. A tube for the neck, another bigger semi oval for the body, leaving space for a hind leg. A fluffy tail and the front paws. The ground plain, mountains, and it's a sunny day. Now for the calf shadows. Then a value two using a curved stroke, leaving white space for the value level one, that's the highlight areas. Using a linear gradation for the ground and referring to our shading chart again, to figure out what would look best for the next overlap. A different direction, lighter, darker or both, a gradation or not. As mentioned, too many options means more planning. We'll put birds here instead of strokes to anchor the background. Draw the bunny again and go ahead and shade it. My overlaps did not turn out as well, but my birds got a little loss. But this is exactly why experimenting with thumbnail doodles is a good way to work out these shading options. If you're keen for more practice with shading combinations, stay for a pig and a bear. You're also welcome to create your own round subjects. These two are optional. When you're ready, join me for the final stage, and we'll be shading using various textures. 9. Stage 3 – Shading with Textures: Using a new sheet or wherever you have enough space for three more exercises. Join me now starting with a square. We're filling it with a squiggly texture. This first texture establishes our level three value. In the square above it, use the same squiggly pattern, but slightly broken apart, so the marks look lighter with more breathing room around them. This becomes our level two value. Below three is four. You're familiar with this process. It's the same as with our previous value scales. We built the tone using thicker marks, bringing them closer together, aim to fill the white space with the squiggly pattern. Some of the marks will overlap as the value transitions to solid black. Let's practice this again, aiming for a smooer gradation. Can see that the squiggly pattern is random. Some of the marks come close enough to touch, but here we're aiming to avoid overlapping those marks. We don't want to cross the squiggle marks over one another too much for our Level four. Using this technique is what gives our scribble texture clarity. Level two was easier because there's more negative space around it. But level four is where it gets trickier because some of the marks will cross over one another, but you can see that when those marks overlap, that area becomes darker and it makes the pattern look blotchy. You can see when I compare column one to column two. In column two, the values are a little less crispy, less clean because I rushed and more of the lines crossed instead of squeezing them together to fill the space. So take your time when doing textures. Let's apply this texture to a round subject. Draw a tree with me, following the same sequence of steps we start shading with solid blacks for the calf shadows. The top left area would be the highlight. And then value level two wraps around all the way to the right side edge. The squiggle pattern follows the direction that the leaves would grow on the tree. Plus, the shape of the tree is round the same way they would as with a spherical object. For the darker values, I'm squiggling the pen into the white areas, like we said, filling the open gaps with the texture. In this scenario, yes, there's black blotches, but they look more intentional here because they're like little shadow shapes for the leaves. For the trunk, it's got a tube like cylindrical shape, and we can use squiggly strokes running parallel to the form or curved across the form. Using the horizontal stroke gradation that we practice. So across the form or along the form. Et's experiment with another leafy tree texture. You'll notice that my pattern is not entirely uniform because we're aiming for a natural looking Dole style. If you make your textures perfectly uniform, it starts to look like a technical drawing, and we're keeping it whimsical, putting all our efforts on the shading, using values, and less on the shape of things. This next tree is more elongated. We're still mindful of the direction that the leaves grow for the texture pattern. The squiggles go up and out and around the form. Building the pattern in clusters tighter together in the areas of shadow and spaced further apart in the areas of highlight. Finishing with contour lines to shade around the trunk. A variation on this pattern would work well for a spiky shrubs or a coniferous tree. Let's doodle a generic spike tree. The needle leaves will grow in a similar direction to the previous trees, but the branch shape is quite different. This will affect how the light lands left to right on this tree and its branches that partially block the light like umbrellas. Will therefore place a value four to indicate where the branches cast shadows on the branches below. Then fade from four to level three on the shadow side of the tree, using the spiky pattern to shade. The pattern points more downwards, not up so much compared to the value scale sample. The left side is in the light, but each branch is dark underneath. Which then creates a lovely contrast, making the tree more believable. Finishing with a dark trunk to complete the illusion. These shading principles work with any pattern that you create. For example, this one would work for fur, grass or even a hard surface like a concrete wall. Little circles for scales or shrubs. Another spiky one, you could apply it to a background environment or cloth, anything goes. If the values make sense, then any texture you create will work. I'll show you more texture examples in the next lesson. 10. Stage 3 – Shading Surfaces: Another technique that works well is blending loose abstract marks with regular strokes when working with subjects that are more technical to draw, like buildings or objects with highly reflective surfaces like metal or glass. This teapot has a hard, shiny surface. Plus, it's technical to draw it accurately, the shape. Mentioned that drawing accurate shapes is a skill that takes a lot of practice, and it's best done from observation using references. This teapot shape is a little wonky. However, because it's shaded with an abstract texture and the values make sense, it visually sells this concept. The value range plus the mix of strokes and scribbles, make this a believable teapot. We know what it is. Same with the second example. All of the values are in, and we might not know exactly what this object is, but it looks intentional, and we can even guess that the surface is partly reflective. Going back to D doodle, the values, textures, and a few strategically placed strokes are what make this drawing a masterpiece, despite some of the proportions and perspective being a little off here and there. That's not the focus here. The intention is to tell a story and describe a scene. How this master did the shading clearly and confidently is what sells this doodle, not how accurately he executed the shapes. So whether you're aiming for wonky shaped designs, using doodles as thumbnails to plan out your finished drawings, or doodling your way into legendary mastery. Now that you know these shading techniques, you'll be able to sketch anything with confidence and clarity. In the next lesson, we'll apply what we've learned from all three stages into a final project. 11. Final Doodle Shading Project: I'm using a new sheet, and I plan to fit four drawings on here. For this final project, I'd love to see at least one final drawing that incorporates all of the shading principles that we practice. The first doodle, I'll use the same subjects that we've already practiced, plus when you think. You can do the same composition as mine, follow along or create your own, starting with our round leafy tree, the rabbit in the very foreground. Now establishing the ground plane, suggesting a grassy texture. We have our mountain in the middle ground with the house on top. Another mountain and a fluffy cloud for the background. I might add one more mountain here. First, let's see how the shading combinations work out with all of these overlaps. So first, we filled the cow shadows for the tree, and then the bunny. Create a level two value in the tree, leaving ample white space for the highlight area. Then after the other values are in, add a texture for the tree trunk using parallel squiggles with a gradation, so it looks like a tube. I'm using strokes for the bunny. A grassy texture for the ground. For the ground, we're mindful of the light source that shines brightest on the left hand side, but the tree and the bunny also cast shadows on the ground. This is a similar shading approach from when we did the coniferous tree with the long branches that we're blocking the light. Then we're thinking about the overlaps, light over dark or dark over light so that we can clearly see what's in front and what's behind. Going darker for the background plus changing the stroke direction. The cloud stays white with a bit of curved strokes on the bottom to make it look round and a broken line for the sky, which gives us a lighter value. Let's do another one. The round character in the very foreground. In the middle ground, I'll use a box shape that we already practice and turn it into a building. The ground is on the middle plain with a squiggly line to suggest shrubs, a mass of leafy trees behind the building. And one coniferous tree. It's a bit further back, and then more mountains to anchor the backroom. Moving on to the cow shadows, planning the value levels and stroke directions just as we did in the previous compositions. The only difference here is that we've introduced textures. I'm using little circles for the leafy tree. And diagonal strokes for the spiky tree. I use degradation of values on both the foreground and background from left to right, left to dark. Note the white that's framing part of the coniferous tree in the back there. Even though it's further from the light source, the white makes it look like the coniferous is even further back in the picture plane and further from the mass of trees in the light. Plus, this way, we can see this tree. So for the next two compositions, I once again encourage you to create your own though you're welcome to do as I do. Here I added honey jar for our bear, and I use that same grassy texture for his fur. I added dots and squiggly marks as textures in the background, which you can see creates sort of a half tone. It's similar to that broken sky that we did in the first doodle with the bunny. It's like a half value. Last one, really have some fun with it. I'm using new subjects, new textures. As long as the values make sense and the overlaps are clear with the shading combinations that you use, then it will all work out. Great. We'll wrap this up in the next lesson. 12. Conclusion and Beyond: I hope that you enjoyed learning about the different stages of shading techniques and that you feel confident to make consistent, actionable progress with your pen and ink practice beyond this class. We learned what makes a clean doodle and how to avoid mud by using different combinations of values and stroke directions to shade overlapping layers, light over dark or dark over light. We learned about how the light source interacts with objects or several objects in a composition, and we looked at textures on various surfaces. We learned that these shading techniques are useful to more accurately represent your ideas, whether you're doing thumbnail concepts or pursuing a dude approach as your signature art style. Thanks again for taking the class. I'm happy to provide feedback or answer any lingering questions about this class or about what other of my classes to take next. If you have a moment, I would really appreciate you leaving a review. I value your thoughts. I wish you all the best with your pen and ink practice, and I'll see you in the next one.