Shading / Learn to Draw the Figure in Dramatic Light & Shadow

1. Welcome and Orientation: Welcome to the shading cores in the art and science of figure drawing series. I'll be your instructor Brent Havynstone. Light and shadow were some of the most dramatic elements that you can bring to a figure drawing. A drawing that contains both Chris blight and deep shadows is one of the most dynamic experiences a viewer can have when looking at a figure drawing, understanding light and shadow is how you bring a true sense of depth, realism in three-dimensionality to a drawing. Now, the process of shading involves rendering three-dimensional form using a range of values from the brightest lights to the darkest darks. Shading is what makes the difference between a flat-looking shape and a three-dimensional one. Shading gives the illusion that the paper is not just flat, but contains depth, and within the depth of that paper, a figure actually exists. It's a powerful illusion that every figurative artist must master. Now, this first video is the orientation. In this orientation, we're going to start with a course overview to give you a sense of what you're going to learn in this course. We're also going to go through set up and basic materials, and we're going to cover some key concepts that you need to learn before you begin the lessons. Well, let's get right into it with an introduction to shading the figure. I think that a good figure drawing has three different elements: gesture, structure, and shading. First, let's talk about gesture drawing. Every good figure drawing begins with a gesture drawing. A good gesture gives the figure a sense of dynamism and energy. Gesture is expressive. It simplifies the subject instead of focusing on details. A good gesture drawing ensures that the figure maintains a sense of action and excitement no matter how many details you draw over it, gesture is what will make your drawings come alive. But a figure drawing also needs to have a deep sense of structure. A good structural drawing simplifies the figure into a collection of three-dimensional volumes. These volumes can include the sphere, the cylinder, the cube, and the ovoid or egg. The structure of a figure drawing is what gives it a sense of three dimensionality, as well as giving the illusion that the figure is occupying deep space. Gesture and structure combined beautifully to give the figure a sense of believability and life. The final element of a successful figure drawing and the focus of this course is shading. By understanding the basic volumes of the figure and by understanding how light and shadow operate on these volumes, you'll be able to render even the smallest details of the figure using dramatic light and shadow. Of course, the figure is an incredibly complex organic form. But with the tools and techniques you'll learn in this course, you'll be able to understand and shade even the more complex anatomical features of the body. Now let's talk about how to set up for failure drawn. This course includes a whole series of photographs of a Nude models lit with a single light source. These kinds of photographs will be perfect draw from. Now, I'm usually drawing at an easel, so you can see behind me I have my easel setup, I have a drawing board on the easel, and I have a piece of paper clipped to the drawing board. You can also see that I'm working on an iPad, so I have the photograph that I'm drawing from pulled up. Now of course you don't need it digital device to draw from, you can print out an image and somehow it fix it either to the drawing board or fix it to a surface that is near the drawing board so you can see it. Now, I usually prefer to stand while I'm drawing an easel, but you can also set, it's just personal preference. But this is not the only way you can set up to draw. Many students, lean a drawing board up against the desk where their computer is, so they have their drawing board in front of them and the image that they're drawing from above the drawing board. Some students use drafting tables where they have their paper and their image that they're drawing from right next to each other, and some students just lean a drawing board up against the table. I encourage you to experiment with the materials that you have access to, to find something that works for you. When you're setting up, you want to make sure that with your arm extended and slightly bend, you can reach the surface of the drawing board. You don't want to have your arms fully extended, but you don't want to have it really close either. Remember, you're going to probably be using the overhand grip, which is something I've demonstrated in all of my courses. That means the drawing is going to come from the shoulder, not simply from the fingers. You want to give yourself a lot of room when you're drawing from the shoulder. You don't want to be too close, but you also don't want to be too far away. Now, one thing that students often overlook and is one of the most important things that you can do while setting up, is you want to make sure that you're drawing surface is perpendicular to your line of sight, as well as the image that you're drawing from. You want to make sure that both the top and the bottom of the page are roughly equidistant from your eyes. If your board is tilted back too far and the top of it is further away than the bottom, that will create distortion to when you draw. Again, make sure that you're drawing surface and the image you're drawing from our perpendicular to your line of sight. Now, that you have an idea of how to set up, let's take a look at some materials. Now there is some flexibility with materials. You don't have to use exactly what I'm using in order to participate in the course. But I'd like to take a few minutes and take you through what I am using so you can figure out what variation works best for you. Most of the drawings done in this course, we're on paper that was clipped to my drawing board. You can see the drawing board behind the drawing in this photo. I prefer to use a hollow wooden drawing board, but any drawing board that fits your piece of paper will do. Now, I like to clip my paper to the drawing board. Here, you can see an example of the kind of clip that I'm using. It's actually a kitchen clip. At the very top of this image, you can see that I have one on either side of the piece of paper. Many drawing boards, particularly masonite drawing boards, actually have clips already attached. But you don't have to have a board specifically designed for drawing, any rigid flat surface will do. You can use drafting tape if you need to, to affix your drawing to the board. Next, let's talk about paper. Unlike many of my other courses, in this course, you're going to be expected to start and finish drawings. This means that these drawings should be done on sturdy archival paper. In this course, you'll see me using 80 pound drawing paper. It's thicker and more durable than most drawing paper. This makes sure that it can stand up to longer, more intense periods of drawing, and it will make it last much longer once you're finished. Now, there are many great kinds of paper. In any brick and mortar store or online art store should be able to help you by archival 80 pound paper or better. But as always, if you don't have access to nicer drawing paper, that's totally fine. You can use whatever you have on hand. Most of the paper you'll see me use in this course is at least 18 by 24 inches, and sometimes 19 by 25 inches. These are pretty standard paper sizes that you shouldn't have any problem finding. I highly recommend drawing on this larger papers so you can really get into the details without feeling cramped. But again, as with anything else, the paper size is ultimately up to you. In this course, you'll see me use both white paper and toned paper. The drawing seen here is done on a piece of light gray paper. You also see me do drawings on lightly colored pieces of paper. Now, you're welcome to experiment with different tones and colors of paper. You just want to make sure that the paper you're using is neutral and lightly colored. You don't want anything too bright, like reds or oranges. Light grays and tans are great to use. Now, it's important to realize that on white paper, you will not be using white pencil. You'll be responsible for drawing all of the value scene. But when using colored or gray paper, you'll be able to use the white pencil to draw the highlights and the paper will stand in for one of your values. You'll see me demonstrate both methods in this course. Next, let's talk about pencils. I draw using oil-based colored pencils. Now, many colored pencils are wax-based, but the wax in the pencils makes the colored degrade over time. But oil-based colored pencils retained their depth and range of values. Now, because we're shading, you'll want your pencils to be dark, but they don't have to be black. In this course, you'll see me drawing using dark browns, grays, and even reds. You just want to make sure that your pencil is dark enough so that it reads as value instead of color. But you're welcome, of course, to do the entire course with a black pencil. There's no need to use more complicated combinations of colors if you don't want to. You can see that the pencil on the far right is a white pencil. This is used for highlights on toned or colored paper. Of course, if you're just using white paper, you won't need a white pencil, because the paper will stand in for the highlights. But as always, you are welcome to substitute these pencils for whatever pencils work best for you or what you have on hand. There's no requirement to buy more expensive materials. Now let's talk about erasers. In this course, you'll see me using two different types of erasers: kneaded erasers and vinyl erasers. A kneaded eraser is a soft, pliable eraser that you can stretch and shape using your hands. You'll see me demonstrate a number of different ways to use a kneaded eraser in this course. Kneaded erasers are great for gently lifting pigment off of the paper. Vinyl erasers on the other hand are a harder eraser that can scrub a piece of paper clean lifting nearly all of the pigment. Because they work so differently, it's important to have both of them. Again, you'll see me demonstrate how to use both of these erasers in the course. The last piece of equipment you'll see me using is a drafting brush. When using a vinyl eraser, it will leave a lot of particles behind. If you brush these particles off the paper with your hand, it will likely smear your drawing. A drafting brush will gently remove these particles without damaging or smearing your drawing. Now one question students sometimes ask is how do I sharpen my pencils? I just use an electric pencil sharpener, but a hand sharpener or a blade will work just fine. As you'll see once we get into the lessons, a long tapered lead will work best for the shading techniques that I'm teaching. For an extensive list of all of the materials and equipment that I use, please visit my website, www.evolveyourart.com, where you'll find numerous resources, drawings and more information about my courses. Now, there are a couple of things I want to talk about before we get into the lessons. The first is that this course focuses on what I call an optical form of shading. That means you're going to learn to observe the three-dimensional forms of the figure and render them using light and shadow. We are going to address some anatomy in this course, but I'm not taking an anatomical approach to shading. Now, this optical form of shading does have many benefits, and the most important one is that you don't necessarily need to know anatomy in order to shade the figure convincingly. Now, I have spent many years studying anatomy and I would recommend that you spend time studying anatomy, but this optical form of shading will allow you to render beautiful figures using light and shadow without knowing all of the technical anatomical details. In this course, I would say we're going to address anatomy on an as-needed basis, but anatomy is not going to be the main focus. The next thing you should know is that this is not a beginning figure drawing course. In fact, this isn't even an intermediate figure drawing course. What I'm covering in this course is for advanced artists. I'm going to assume that you have gone through all of my previous courses in the Art and Science of Drawing series, as well as the two other courses in my Art and Science of Figure Drawing series. Now, if for some reason you haven't gone through my courses, but you feel like you already have a really strong drawing foundation, here are the basic concepts that you need to understand before starting this course. I'm going to expect you have a good understanding of gesture drawing, of how to do volumetric figure drawing using construction methods. I'm also going to assume that you have a very strong foundation in drawing basic volumes like cubes, cylinders, and spheres, as well as cones and egg shapes. Finally, of course, you need to understand basic shading. I'm already going to assume that you know the primary light and shadow conditions that we find on basic volume. Just so there's no question about what you need to know before starting this course, let's take a look at a couple basic volumes, an egg and a cone, two of the volumes you'll regularly deal with when drawing and shading the figure. In addition to being able to draw these basic volumes, you need to understand how light operates when it hits them. So you should already be familiar with the highlight, which is the brightest part of a drawing where the light reflects off of the object and directly back into your eyes. You should also understand the center light, where on the lit side of the object the value gets lighter as it approaches the light source. You should also understand how to draw the core shadow, the dark band of shadow that is found on rounding objects. You should understand reflected light, where an adjacent surface reflects light back into the shadow. Finally, you should already understand and know how to draw cast shadows, including how the shape of a cast shadow changes as it casts over another volume. Now, I've covered these ideas extensively in other courses, but if at anytime you need a refresher, I highly recommend revisiting the Shading Fundamentals course in the original Art and Science of Drawing series, as well as the Shading Beyond the Basics course. Assuming you're ready, let me show you how we're going to apply these concepts to the human figure. The first thing you're going to learn in this course is when your drawing is ready to be shaded. One of the most common mistakes students make is shading their drawing before they're ready. Being able to evaluate when your drawing is ready to be shaded is an essential but often overlooked skill. When your drawing is ready, you'll learn how to divide it into broad areas of light and shadow. The seemingly simple task is an essential step that will help you to keep your values organized as you add more and more detail. Next, you'll draw the core shadow. In doing so, you'll start to add some of the complexity of the anatomy. Next, you'll learn to add cast shadows, which will be the darkest values in your drawing. From there, you'll move to the lit side of the figure and draw the center lights. The subtle step will add a new sense of dimension to your drawings. Next, you'll learn to draw using mid tones, where some of the most subtle anatomical details will be rendered. Here, you'll learn how to analyze and draw any anatomical detail you can see. Next, you'll learn how to add the highlights, which are the brightest parts of a drawing that will bring it to life with shimmering vibrancy. Finally, you'll learn how to refine your drawing, adding any details or values you may have missed, and refining the anatomy to the point where you feel the drawing is finished. Now, if at any time during this course you feel like you need to go back and get some more practice and experience on these more fundamental drawing skills, I highly recommend you do so. But once you have the prerequisites for this course, hopefully this course will open up an entirely new way of looking at the figure and shading it. Now, for those of you who have been with me, this is the culmination of all of the other courses I've done so far. It's all been leading up to this, and this is the first course where you're going to be doing truly finished figure drawings. Now, as always, practice is critical. Now in this course, I'm not going to give you timed poses like in the first two figure drawing courses I did. I'm going to provide a wide range of still images for you to work from. This is so you can take your time and really render the form at your own pace. But just like anything in drawing, you must practice in order to improve. The more mindful practice you do, the better and faster you will get. Now, whether you've been a student who's taken many courses for me or you're a new student, I'm thrilled to have you here. Let's get into the very first lesson; preparing your drawing for shading. 2. Preparing to Shade: Welcome to the first lesson in the shading section of the art and science of figure drawing series. The purpose of this lesson is to teach you when a drawing is ready to be shaded. Shading a drawing before it is ready is one of the most common drawing mistakes I see, and it can ruin a drawing. By the end of this lesson, you'll have a solid idea where your drawing needs to be before it is shaded. Here is an example of a drawing that is ready to be shaded. Let's talk about some of the things that make this drawing ready to be shaded. First, it has a strong sense of gesture. Now this drawing of course, is well past the gesture phase, but you'll notice that it maintains a sense of gesture even though it's more completed. In this drawing we can really feel the arching of the torso. We feel the bending of the legs as they project forward into space, we can feel the upward thrust of the arm. Now of course, the specifics of the gesture will vary drawing to drawing. Let's take a look at another pose. This gesture has very different dynamics than the first pose we looked at, but it maintains the vibrance and energy that a good gesture should have. We can feel the dynamic bend in the torso, and this drawing has accurately captured that dynamic counter position of the axis lines of the shoulders and pelvis. Of course, I've already covered gesture drawing in great detail in my gesture course. If you need any refreshers on gesture drawing, please revisit the gesture drawing course. Now, let's talk about landmarks. In addition to a drawing being gestural, its proportions also needs to be believable. One of the best ways to measure your drawing and make sure it's in proportion, is to properly place the visible landmarks. Now this is also something I covered in depth in the gesture drawing course, but let me give you some reminders. A landmark can be any prominent feature on the surface of the body that can be used for measuring. Now, most of the landmarks that I recommend using for measuring are skeletal. This is because the skeleton is a rigid and predictable. But there are other useful landmarks as well that we'll talk about in just a moment. These are just some of the landmarks that I used while establishing the proportions of this drawing. Here, you can see the olecranon process of the elbow. This bony landmark is fantastic for measuring because it's usually so obvious, particularly when the arm is bent. Of course, you should be very familiar with one of my favorite landmarks, the suprasternal notch. Now whenever I place landmarks, I constantly compare them to one another. For example, take a look at the olecranon process. Now, take a look at the suprasternal notch. Hopefully you can see that the suprasternal notch is underneath the olecranon process, but it's also slightly to the left. I'm constantly making these kinds of evaluations when placing landmarks. Here, you can see the sternum. The sternum of course, projects down from the suprasternal notch. It's important to capture its correct angle. Here, we come across the first non skeletal landmarks that I used when constructing this drawing; the nipples. When placing the nipples, I will usually evaluate the angle between the two, but also how they relate to other landmarks nearby. Every time I place a new landmark, I evaluate it in relationship to the other landmarks that I've drawn. In between the breasts, you can see I've lightly indicated the xiphoid process, which is at the lower end of the sternum. Moving down from either side of the xiphoid process, we have the thoracic arch. You'll notice that many of these landmarks are indicated very lightly. Usually I'll use a dark line if a bony landmark prominently comes to the surface, like we find at the olecranon process of the elbow, but a lighter line at an area like that thoracic arch that's gently pressing outward from below the surface of the skin. Moving down the figure, we come to the naval or the belly button. This visually prominent landmark can be very useful in helping to establish the centerline. We'll talk more about the centerline later on in this lesson. Now I usually like to include the anterior superior iliac spines of the pelvis when drawing the figure from the front. But you'll notice because of the seated position, those bony landmarks were not visible in this pose. It's always important to be flexible and to realize that not all landmarks are going to be visible in all poses. Each pose is likely to offer a different collection of visible landmarks. Continuing down the figure, we get to the patellas or the kneecaps. Now there are of course other landmarks I could have used, but I've selected the most visually prominent and important landmarks for this pose. To demonstrate this, let's take a look at a different pose. Here you can see that this pose shows the model from the back. So we simply cannot see, and therefore cannot use many of the landmarks that we used when viewing the figure from the front. Once again, let's go down the figure and point out the various landmarks that I used to construct this drawing and to keep it in proportion. First, we have the acromion processes. You'll notice that the acromion process on our left appears as a bony bump protruding from the surface of the skin, while the acromion process on our right appears as a depression because as the right arm raises up, it gets buried. It's important to remember here that we're focusing on anatomy on an as needed basis. If you're unfamiliar with any of these landmarks that's fine. There will be plenty of landmarks that you will recognize that you can use while measuring your drawing. As your knowledge of anatomy grows, the landmarks that you're aware of will also grow, and can be folded into your figure drawing practice. Here at the base of the neck, you can see the seventh cervical vertebra. When this landmark is visible, it's a great way to establish the top of the centerline of the torso. Now even though this pose is viewed from the back, we can still see the olecranon processes of the elbows. Although in this pose they appear very different because the arms are oriented differently. The arm on the left is rotated, so we see the side view of the olecranon process, whereas the arm on our right is pointing toward us, which gives us a more direct view of the olecranon process. Here you can see the scapulae. I covered the scapulae in greater detail in the gesture drawing course. Assuming you took that course, you should already have experienced locating this triangular shaped bone. Particularly the prominent angles found near the middle of the back. Now in this pose we can see the lateral heads of the ulnas and the radii. Just like I talked about in the first pose we looked at, the joints are an excellent place to use landmarks. Locating and drawing the joints of the arms and legs is a great way to establish the proportions of the limbs. In this pose we can only see one of the patellas, but you can see that I've used a dark line to highlight this bony protuberance. At the top of the pelvis, you can see that I've lightly indicated the posterior superior iliac spines. Slightly below those, I've indicated the coccyx. Again, the landmarks that you use in a drawing will vary pose to pose. It's not critical that you use every single landmark as a point of measurement. But the goal is to use whatever prominent landmarks of the pose you're working with to construct a constellation of points. Each point of the constellation will have a specific relationship to each of the other points in the constellation. To put it another way, any two points that you select in the constellation will be a specific distance apart from one another, and will create a specific angle between them. Whether you're using angle citing, proportional measuring, or just doing the best you can evaluating with your eyes, arranging these points to accurately reflect the specific distances and directions between them is an excellent way to establish the proportions of the figure. Believably capturing the proportions of the pose that you're working with is an essential first step to shading. Now we know that before you start the shading process, your drawing should have captured the dynamism of the pose using gesture. But it should also have believable proportions established by properly arranging the prominent landmarks that are visible on the surface of the model. Keeping gesture and landmarks in mind, now let's talk about volume. I covered volumetric drawing extensively in my volume and structure course in the art and science of figure drawing series. Assuming you've taken that course, let me point out the kinds of indications of volume that your drawing should have before you start shading. As you should already know, light operates predictably on basic volumes, like cylinders, spheres, cones, ovoids, and boxes. By understanding the volumes that a subject is made up of, and understanding where the light is coming from, we should be able to observe and draw any light and shadow patterns that fall on the figure. It's critical that before we begin the shading process, we understand the volumes making up the figure and how they are oriented in space. First we'll talk about the centerline that runs down the anatomical center of the torso. From the front, we can see the centerline running down the sternum. From there, the centerline runs down the linea alba, which is the line in between the abdominal muscles. It moves downward toward the naval. We can see the centerline dive into, and then emerge out of the naval. This in and of itself is an indication of volume. The centerline near the naval acts as a topographic line, illustrating the depression of the naval. Underneath the naval, we can see the centerline descend toward the symphysis of the pubis. In this pose, you can see that the centerline is much closer to the side of the torso on our left, than to the side on our right. This gives the distinct indication that the torso is turning toward our left. In this pose however, we can see that the centerline appears to run right down the center of the upper part of the torso. Although as it descends, we can see it moving toward the right side of the model, giving the impression of a subtle twist. The centerline is an essential tool that will help you establish the rotation of the torso in space. As you should know, an overlap is when a contour line dives inside a form, and a second contour takes its place and appears to move in front of another part of the subject. By following the order of the overlaps, we get a sense of what parts of the body are closer to us and which parts are further away. Let me give you an example. Here, we can see that the line defining the edge of the lower section of the torso dives inside the form and dissipates. In order to continue the contour of the torso, we must begin a second line. But this second line also dives inside the form. The series of overlaps gives the distinct impression that this lowest section of the torso is in front of the section right above it. The second overlap tells us that this section of the torso is overlapping and therefore in front of the upper chamber of the torso containing the rib cage. Up here, we can see that this contour for the upper chamber of the torso overlaps the contour for the arm, giving the distinct impression that the part of the torso containing the rib cage is in front of the arm. You can see that I've used overlaps all over this drawing to create a hierarchy of what is in front or closer to us and what is further away or behind other parts of the body. Let's take a look at some of the most prominent overlaps in the drawing. They can be found at the bend in the torso. You can see that these overlaps give a distinct impression of folding and compressed flesh. But they're also an opportunity for another form of volumetric drawing. Ellipses. You should already know that the rib cage is an egg shape. One way to communicate this roundness of the rib cage is by using ellipses. At this lowest overlap at the waist, you can see that I've lightly ghosted in the entire ellipse moving from one side to another. This gives us the distinct impression that we are looking into the bottom of the rib cage and that the bottom of the rib cage is closer to us than the top of the rib cage. I call these kinds of ellipses, subliminal ellipses because they are barely there. They tend to register in the mind of the viewer on a more subconscious level. It's not that I saw this full ellipse on the surface of the model, but I made a decision to emphasize what was there to really communicate the roundness of the rib cage. You can see that I've used subliminal ellipses even more subtly on the two overlaps above. Here, you can see that the ellipses have just barely been started, but it's enough to register an ellipse in the mind of the viewer. There's one more thing I'd like to address regarding overlaps before we move on. Every overlap creates an apex. As you should already know, an apex occurs when two lines come together and form a point. These points can be evaluated and measured just like any other landmark. Whenever I come across an obvious apex, I always try and place it in relationship to other landmarks, checking to see how it relates in both distance and direction to multiple other points. There are of course, multiple apexes all over both of these drawings. But here's a more obvious apex found in this drawing. Let's get back to ellipses. In this drawing, we can again find many ellipses. Take a look at the top of the pelvis. Here, you can see that the ellipse implied at the top of the pelvis not only gives us a sense of its roundness, but it also tells us that the pelvis is tipping forward. Let's take a look at other ellipses in these drawings. I'd like you to note how many of these ellipses begin with overlaps. On the leg that is closest to us, we can find two different ellipses. One created at the overlap where the flesh of the leg pushes out under the weight of the body that is resting upon it. A second ellipse can be found where the shaft of the upper leg attaches to the lower section of the torso. Hopefully you can see that even though these ellipses are subtle, they give the leg a true sense of roundness and softness. The other leg also contains an ellipse, as does this arm. This ellipse at the base of the arm tells us that the arm is coming toward us. Again, I know these ellipses seems subtle, but they are doing most of the hard work of communicating the orientation of these volumes in space. In this drawing, we can clearly see the entire ellipse has been drawn right above the elbow at the upper arm. This was actually observed on the model. In the forearm section of the arm on our right, we can see that there have been two ellipses implied. When joined with the outer contours of the rest of the forearm, we can see that they clearly make a cylinder. When looking at these drawings, you can find multiple other examples of ellipses. But it's important to note that unlike the drawings you did in the volume in structure course, these ellipses should just be implied not explicitly stated. Drawing these kinds of ellipses serves two purposes. The first of course, is to give your drawings a strong sense of volume. But the second is to force you, the artist, to truly understand both the volumes that make up your subject, as well as how they are oriented in space. Understanding the volumes that make up the figure is an essential prerequisite to shading. There are just a couple more ideas I'd like to talk about before we get you drawing. Let's talk for a moment about the contours of these drawings. Before you shade a drawing, the contours need to be generally worked out. You can see that all the forms of the body have a pretty concrete shape with definitive edges that believably portray the proportions of the figure. There's not a lot of ambiguity and the contours here. Your figure needs to seem solid before you shade it. But you'll also notice that none of the contour lines are dark. There are of course some that are darker than others, but I've left myself a lot of room to really work on the line quality later on in the drawing process. The final thing I'd like to talk about is how to address anatomy. Both of these drawings have some of the muscles lightly gestured in. You can see some of the muscles of the legs and this drawing. If you take a look at the arm on the right in this drawing, you can see again some of the muscles lightly gestured in. The level of anatomical detail you bring to your drawings is up to you. But if a piece of anatomy really stands out, even if you're not entirely sure what it is, it is okay to use your drawing skills to lightly gesture it in. But if you're not comfortable with this yet, that is totally fine. Let me summarize what we've learned by looking at this drawing. This is one of the drawings that you're going to see me shade in this course. The first thing I'd like you to notice is that this drawing has a strong sense of gesture. Remember, the more details you add, the more you're drawing tends to stiffen up. So you want to begin with a very gestural drawings. But this drawing also has a strong sense of volume and structure. Here you'll see me placing ellipse at the top of this leg, giving us the impression that it's coming toward us. Here you'll see me shaping the box at the forearm, giving the impression that the forearm is traveling away from us. Also, by carefully placing the landmarks in relationship to one another, I've drawn a figure with believable proportions. In addition to the landmarks, I'm also paying close attention to the width of each part of the body before crafting the contours and overlaps. This will ensure that no part of the body will be too thick or too thin. This combination of gesture, volume and contours has produced a solid drawing of a figure with all of the major parts of the body resolved. If you need a refresher on gesture, volumetric drawing or measuring, please revisit the gesture course and the volume and structure course in the art and science of figure drawing series, as well as the measuring and proportion course in the original art and science of drawing series. Now let's get you drawing. Just like my other courses, you'll watch one video lesson and do the recommended practice before continuing with the next lesson. But unlike my other courses, in this course, you're primarily going to be working on one drawing throughout the course. At the end of the course, you'll have a finished, shaded figure drawing. Here's your project for this lesson. Included with this course is a collection of numerous images of nude models that have been lit with a single light source. Perfect for shading. Select a photo that you want to draw from for the duration of this course. I'll be drawing from this image, but you can choose any image you like. What you learn in this course can be applied to any figure drawing. On an 18 by 24 sheet of drawing paper, draw the figure from the reference photo you have selected. Using the guidelines presented in this lesson, bring your drawing to the point where it is ready to be shaded. The point where a drawing is ready to be shaded will be different for each and every drawing. But hopefully this lesson has given you an idea of what a drawing looks like when it's ready to be shaded and the different elements that it should have. In the next lesson, you'll learn how to begin the shading process. Good luck with your project today and I will see you in the next lesson with your drawing that is ready to be shaded. 3. Dividing Light from Shadow: Welcome to the second lesson in the shading section of the art and science of figure drawing series. In this lesson, you're going to learn the first one of the most important steps of the shading process, dividing light from shadow. When looking at a more finished drawing such as this one, it's easy to become fixated by all of the details and the subtle variations of value. But this complex network of details is actually organized into some pretty basic patterns of light and shadow. In fact, every individual part of the body can be divided into a lit side and a shadow side. The line that divides the lit side from the shadow side is called the line of termination. As you should know, it is called this because that line is where the light terminates, leaving the rest of the form in shadow. By first focusing on these more basic light and shadow patterns, we'll better be able to understand and draw the complexities of light and shadow that come later on in the process. So the very first question we should ask ourselves when we're getting ready to shade, is this. Where is the light coming from? As I've talked about extensively in other courses, the best lighting for shading is a single light source that directs light down onto the figure from an angle. So take a moment to look at this drawing. Can you figure out where the light is coming from? Hopefully you can see that the light is coming from the upper right. We can tell this of course, because the upper right section of most of the forms of the body are in light and the lower left section of most of the forms of the body are in shadow. We see this pattern repeated on the largest forms of the body as well as the smallest. But of course, at the beginning of the shading process, we're not interested in the small details. We're only interested in the big picture. So let's take this drawing back to the beginning before the shading process begins. At this point, you should already be familiar with what a drawing looks like when it's ready to be shaded. Now before we begin the shading process, we want to understand the big picture. We want to understand how light and shadow work on the figure in the most basic and fundamental ways. To do that, let's simplify the figure into its most basic volumes. It's important to remember that there's not one single way to do this, but here is a suitable solution, the one that made the most sense to me. If you're here at the shading course, these volumes should already make sense to you. Let's take a look at the large, egg-shaped volume for the upper section of the torso. We know that the light is coming from the upper right. Sure enough, we can see that the shadows are on the lower left of the egg shape. What we're most interested in the beginning of the shading process is the line of termination, which you can see here. Now on the actual figure, you can see that the line of termination is much more complicated. Instead of the smooth line of termination that we see on the simplified egg-shaped for the torso, the line of termination that we see on the torso in the photograph, ripples and undulates over the various anatomical details found on the torso. Nevertheless, you can see that the line of termination on the egg follows the same basic path as the line of termination in the photograph. This pattern is so easy to miss if you're not looking for it. This is why it's critical to first understand the lighten and shadow patterns in the most basic way possible. Next, let's take a look at the line of termination on the leg, on our left. The shadow side of this part of the leg is of course found on the left side of the forearm. Just like with the torso in the photograph, we see that the line of termination that divides light from shadow is much more complex. However, it follows the same basic pattern. The right side of the leg is receiving the light and the left side of the leg is in shadow. Let's do the same thing with the leg on our right. Hopefully you can clearly see that the line of termination is here. Once again, the reality is a little more complicated, but it follows the same basic light and shadow pattern. The upper right section of the leg is receiving light and the lower left is in shadow. The same is true, of course, for the line of termination on the arm, as well as the joint of the knees. So for now, let's remove the dashed lines over the line of termination. This simplified lighting scheme is critical to understand before you attempt to shade, you can almost think of this as a gesture of light and shadow, a simplified version that captures the essence of the light and shadow patterns. Now I know this may seem like an oversimplification, but without understanding these fundamental light and shadow patterns, it's all too easy to go chasing shadows around and miss this big picture. Hopefully you can really see what a dramatic sense of light and shadow this simplified drawing has. This is why it's so important that no matter how many details you draw, your drawing maintains this simpler, more fundamental division of light and shadow. With this in mind, let's take a look at the photograph. Now take a moment to really observe the light and shadow patterns. One thing that really helps when you're looking at light and shadow is to let your eyes go softly out of focus. Or if this is difficult, you can try squinting. The idea is to not focus on the details, but focus on the overall light and shadow patterns. Now ignoring the cast shadows, hopefully with your eyes squinted or out of focus, you can really see how the simplified light and shadow patterns we just talked about directly apply to the more complex reality. So with all of this in mind, let's get to the drawing demonstration. In this first step of the shading process, our goal is to divide the lit side of the forms of the figure from the shadowed side. We want to do this in a simplified way that focuses on the larger light and shadow patterns and ignores most of the details. The details will come later and it's much easier to organize the details once we have a strong sense of the larger light and shadow patterns. Now we constantly want to think about where the light is coming from and how it's interacting with the volumes of the figure. In this pose, the lightest coming from this direction, above and from the right. But you can also see that it's coming more from the side than from above. Now generally speaking, we'll want to work big to small. The biggest form is the volume for the torso. The second biggest form is the volume for the leg on our left. As you'll see in a moment in this pose, the shadows for these two forms connect. Whenever we're shading, we want to simplify our light and shadow patterns. That means if the shadows of two forms easily connect, you're welcome to draw them that way. This can help your drawing have an overall sense of cohesion instead of a piecemeal approach to shading which can look disjointed. So let's begin with the torso. As I talked about before, the line of termination that separates the light side from the shadow side of the forearm, travels down the left side of the egg and then curves toward our right near the bottom of the egg shape. As you see me draw, there are two things I'd like to point out. The first is how soft this line of termination is. Remember, this is a forearm shadow. A forearm shadow is created when a rounding surface curves away from the light. Forearm shadow edges are soft. I also want you to note how simplified this line of termination is. I'm ignoring nearly all of the variations that we find in the reference photograph. Students often mistakenly believe that if they don't capture all the details at the beginning of the drawing, they'll somehow miss their opportunity. This couldn't be further from the truth. By focusing on the simplified big picture first, we can better organize the more detailed shadows in a way that makes sense in relationship to the big picture. Again, you can think of this first pass as a gesture of the line of termination, a simplified line that catches the essence of the line of termination. Now of course, how much you simplify this line is up to you. I don't always work quite this simple, but at the beginning it's very useful to try this. Once the line of termination for the torso has been established, all lay in a light wash of value. I'm assuming of course, that you've already taken my light and shadow courses in the original art and science of drawing series. So this value wash is about a number two value on the value scale that I use, with the number one value being white and a number five value being black. For a review of these values, please revisit the shading fundamentals course in the original art and science of drawing series. As we move down to the leg on our left, I'll demonstrate what it looks like to include a little more complexity in the line of termination. We can see the line of termination first curve around the ovoid shape of the pelvis before cutting back as it goes over the ellipse where the leg attaches to the pelvis. From there, the line of termination runs down parallel to the cylinder for the leg. You'll notice that I'm editing out the triangular shaped shadow that occurs about a third of the way down the leg. Of course, if you feel comfortable adding in details like that when you're drawing, feel free. Here at the knee, I will add a little more complexity. So you can see that I've drawn the wedge-shaped piece of light above the patella. Working simple to complex and ignoring details at the beginning is one of the best ways to make this shading process on a complex subject like the figure much more manageable. I just don't want you to feel pressure to capture every detail in the line of termination on the first pass. With the line of termination for the upper section of the leg drawn in, I will once again lay down a number two wash a value. Now the lower portion of the leg is almost entirely in shadow and since I'm not planning on making it a focus in this drawing, I'll lay down a broad wash of value. So now that we've drawn the shadows on the leg on our left, as well as the shadow on the torso, you can see that the lighting scheme is already starting to take shape. Now I'll move to the next largest section of the body, the leg on our right. I'll draw this line of termination at about a medium level of complexity, including some, but not all of the details. After shading in the shadow side, I'll move down to the lower section of the leg as well as the foot. Finally, I'll go through this same process on the arm. Now on the arm, in addition to the line of termination, you'll see me also draw the edge of the cast shadow, where the arm casts its shadow onto the torso. When appropriate, unifying the form shadows and the cast shadows can be a useful shortcut when shading. You just want to remember which is which, because the edges, and values of cast shadows are different from those of form shadows, but for now, we can shade both of them in using the same light wash of value. At this point, we've captured all of the biggest and most important lightened shadow patterns on the figure. Even with very few details, hopefully you can already see the light and shadow pattern emerging. Now, I'm going to look for any other parts of the body that turned away from the light and are not receiving direct light from the light source, such as this area on the upper back where the scapula meets the torso, and this is a smaller detail, but on the underside of the thoracic arch of the rib cage, we can see it turn away from the light and go into shadow. Now it's important to remember, this is not an opportunity to start chasing around every little value change you see. We are only interested in the parts of the body that are turning completely away from the light and going into shadow. If you take a look at the lit side of the line of termination on the torso, you'll see numerous lumps and bumps that are a little lighter on the right side and a little darker on the left side, but the darker areas of these little details are still receiving direct light. If you compare their value to the area we just shaded in, where the rib cage turns away from the light, you can see that the shadow under the thoracic arch of the rib cage is much darker than any of these other anatomical details. Now we've concluded our first step. The primary light and shadow patterns have been established. Now it's okay if you've missed something or at the very beginning of the shading process, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to go back, and add any shadows you may have missed. Now as you can see, I am not drawing on white paper. I'm drawing on a piece of lightly colored paper. Now whether you're working on white or toned paper, the beginning steps are still the same. They only diverge when we get to the lit side of the line of termination and in particular, the highlights. Nevertheless, let's take a look at this drawing done on white paper. After making sure that drawing is ready to be shaded, I'll go through the exact same process I demonstrated on the toned of the piece of paper, but this time I'll add a little more detail in the line of termination. Remember, it's up to you to figure out the right level of detail for you while you're recording the line of termination. If you feel at all daunted with the complexity of the shading process, simplifying the line of termination is the best way to go, but if you're comfortable attempting more detail in your first pass at the line of termination, can be a great shortcut. In this drawing, you can see I'm including a lot more at the undulations and subtle details in the line of termination. I'd also like to point out that the line of termination that begins at the olecranon process of the elbow flows all the way down the figure to the foot in one unbroken line. As I draw the line of termination, look back and forth between what I'm drawing and the reference photo so you can see the level of detail that I'm drawing at and what I'm leaving out. Although I'm recording more detail into line of termination, it's still simplified. Now because the line of termination is unbroken from the top of the drawing to the bottom. I can shade in the entire right side of the figure in one pass, and just like in the previous drawing, once I have the major light and shadow patterns established, I'll look around the drawing to see if there are any separated shadows that I may have missed. You've just seen me demonstrate the first step of the shading process, dividing the lit side of the line of termination from the shadow side and laying down a light wash of value in the shadows. Hopefully you can see that even though it's simplified, the drawing is already starting to create the illusion of a human figure late with this single light source. No matter how detailed our drawing gets in the future, we must maintain this strong division of light and shadow. With all of this in mind, let's get you drawing. As I mentioned before, you'll be working with the same drawing through this entire course. From the previous lesson, you should already have selected a photo you want to work with and produced a drawing that is ready to be shaded. For today's project, you're going to divide light from shadow. You'll do this by first drawing in a simplified version of the line of termination. How simple is up to you. If you're at all daunted by the shading process, erring on the simpler side will be better than making it more complex than you're comfortable with. As you saw in today's demonstration, sometimes there are numerous lines of termination you'll need to draw to capture the lit side and shadow side of the various forms of the body, while other times, the line of termination maybe unified from top to bottom. It really depends on the pose. Once you've successfully drawn in the line or lines of termination for all of the various parts of the body, you can lay down a light wash of value in the shadow side. Now if your drawing has a number of different lines of termination for the various parts of the body, you can shade in each part of the body as you draw the line of termination, but if you have one primary line of termination that divides the light from shadow and unifies most of these shadows, you can shade them in after the line of termination is drawn. The more experience you get shading, the more familiar you'll get with what works for you. Now it's important that you realize at this stage, your drawing should only have two values. The value of the paper and the light wash of value in the shadow side of the line of termination. It's important that you don't take your drawing any further than this. Don't try and add more details in the shadows or on the lit side of the line of termination. Remember, the goal of this lesson and for your project today is to divide the light from the shadow in the most basic way possible, but don't worry, we'll address all of the details later on in this course. Just try and be patient. Now if at any time during the shading process you feel like you could use a refresher on more fundamental shading skills, please review the two shading courses in the original art and science of drawing series. Those two courses are shading fundamentals and shading beyond the basics. Remember, I'm already assuming that you understand the fundamentals of the shading process, and this course is focusing on how to apply those fundamentals to the figure. Once your drawing is at this level, you're ready to go on to the next lesson where we'll focus on the core shadow, and some of the complexities of the figures start to come through. Well, good luck with your project today, and I will see you in the next lesson. 4. The Core Shadow: Welcome to the third lesson in the shading section of the art and science of figure drawing series. In this lesson, you're going to learn how to draw the core shadow. As you should already know, the core shadow is the dark band of shadow that can be found between the line of termination and the reflected light on a rounded object. The core shadow and the reflected light work together to create a dramatic sense of roundness using light and shadow. Before we get to today's drawing demonstration, let's do some review. You should already be very familiar with drawing the core shadow on more basic objects like egg shapes and cylinders. On spheres and egg shaped volumes or ovoids the core shadow will appear to curve and taper. On cylindrical forms, it will appear straighter. Again, I'm assuming that you're already well-versed in how light and shadow operate on these more basic volumes. Now, let me show you how core shadows and reflected light operate on more complex volumes. Let's take a look at the two egg shaped volume stacked on top of one another on the left. These two volumes, of course represent the rib cage and the pelvis. In the previous lesson, you learned how to draw a simplified version of the line of termination in order to divide the basic volumes of the body into a lit side and a shadow side. In addition to dividing the form into a lit side and a shadow side, the line of termination is also one edge of the core shadow. The other edge of the core shadow is where the form begins to lighten as light from the environment reflects back onto it. This area of course, is called the reflected light. You can see the same pattern play out in the egg right below this one. As we talked about in the previous lesson, it is essential for you to understand how these basic light and shadow patterns work on simplified forms. But of course, the figure is not a simplified form. As the subject gets more complex, we'll see some variations in this basic arrangement. Now, let's take a look at the egg shaped volumes in the center of the page, I've drawn these two egg-shaped volumes as if they were connected by a membrane that was stretching between them. This creates a compound volume. We still have the two egg-shaped volumes of the rib cage and the torso, but the membrane stretching in between them create some more cylindrical volume. The line of termination starts out just as we would expect on an egg. But as this egg shaped volume transitions into a cylinder, we can see that the line of termination straightens out just as we would expect on a cylinder. In fact, the entire core shadow follows this pattern as does the reflected light. This transition from a curving core shadow to a straight one is very common on the human body. Now, let's take a look at the egg shaped volumes on the right. Now, even though these egg shaped volumes connected by a membrane are very similar to the ones at the center of the page, you can see that the core shadow when the reflected light look a little different on these volumes. Remember, the specifics of the light and shadow patterns will change depending on where the light sources and how the specific volumes are oriented in space. Capturing the specifics of the subject in front of you is important. But remember, even though they may appear different, it's all going to be variations on the same light and shadow pattern. Once again, you can see that the line of termination curves around the egg shaped volume, but then it transitions into a second egg shaped volume. You'll notice though that the line of termination is connected from the top of the first egg to the bottom of the second. This scalloped shadow shape is very common on the human figure. Now, let's take a look at a different compound form. Here, we're once again working with an egg shaped volume, but on the surface of it you can see I've drawn three different protrusions. Now, most of the details found on the human figure are all of these little lumps and bumps on the surface of the skin where either muscle or bone create a visible protrusion from underneath the flesh. Now for today's lesson, we're just interested in the bottom protrusion, the one that rests on the line of termination. First, we'll take a look at the line of termination for the primary volume of the large egg shape. But we can see that this small protrusion on the surface interrupts the line of termination. Instead of just curving down toward the bottom of the larger egg-shaped volume, the line of termination is altered. We see a secondary curve occur as the line of termination travels over this protrusion. It looks something like this. Once the line of termination has traveled up and over the protrusion, we see it continue over the surface of the larger volume. Now, let's take a look at the edge between the core shadow and the reflected light. You can see that the shape of both the core shadow and the reflected light have also been altered by this protrusion. Now in this simplified diagram, we only find one protrusion on the line of termination, but on the actual figure, there can be many that break up the primary shadow pattern that we would usually find on a more basic egg shaped volume. Every time a muscle or bone presses from underneath the skin, it creates a visible protrusion at the surface, we'll find the line of termination and the core shadow altered. We'll also see deviations from more basic light and shadow patterns when skin stretches, or compresses, or when volumes transition from one into another. For example, when an egg shaped volume transitions into a cylinder. Let's take a look at some of these conditions on an actual model. Here on the arm on our right, we can see a very clear core shadow running down the length of the cylindrical volume of the arm. Of course, you can also clearly see the reflected light right next to it. You can see a similar condition on the other arm. But here of course, you can see that the core shadow is straight or near the hand where the arm is more cylindrical but begins to curve as it approaches the elbow where the volume is more egg shaped. Now, let's take a look at the breast. The breast of course, is an ovoid or egg shape and we can clearly see that the core shadow and the reflected light are curving. We know of course, that the basic volume for the pelvis is one large egg shape and we can see a shadow pattern remarkably similar to those in the diagrams that we just looked at. Now, let's take a look at the volume for the deltoid muscle of the shoulder. The deltoid muscle creates an egg shaped volume at the top of the arm. In fact, when we isolate the egg using a diagram, you can see a familiar light and shadow pattern that is nearly identical to what we would see on an actual egg shaped volume of similar proportions. Again, this is why it's so important to be able to understand the basic volumes of the figure and how light operates on them. These fundamental light and shadow patterns are so easy to miss if you're not looking for them and they make all the difference in the world to your drawings. But of course the arm then transitions into a cylinder. I'd like you to take note how these two volumes interact as they transition into one another. You can see the line of termination of the egg shape of the deltoid here. Just like on a real egg, you can see it taper to a point where we can see the shadow cutback and then join the line of termination of the cylinder for the arm. Of course, every new pose will come with new challenges and require new solutions. Just remember that when you're ready to draw the core shadow, you want to be mindful of maintaining the more basic light and shadow patterns on the larger volumes, while at the same time being aware of how the details change the line of termination in the core shadow and how the compound forms of the body transition one into another. Now, let's take a look at how this applies to the posts that I've been drawing from. Now in the previous lesson, we just laid down a light wash of value to help divide the lit side of the form from the shadow side. Now, depending on the value of paper you're using, the light wash of value that you apply yesterday can be either a number 2 or number 3 value. As you can see here, the value of the core shadow needs to be darker than the initial value that you laid in from the previous lesson. In this lesson, you're going to be adding a second value to your drawing. Let's take a look at a value scale. It's important to note that value scales can change depending on the color and value of the pencil you're using, as well as the color and value of the paper. Now, this value scale is done on a piece of paper that is slightly darker than the one might demonstration drawing is on. But this is a good generic value scale that will be useful as we talk about the different values you'll be using. The core shadow you'll be drawing today is roughly at a number 4 value. But of course, we can't talk about the core shadow without talking about reflected light. Now the value you laid in the previous lesson, should be between a number 2 and a number a 3 value. This is the perfect value for reflected light. The value you laid in in the previous lesson served two purposes. It divided light from shadow and communicated the big light and shadow patterns, but it also handled the value of the reflected light. This allows us to just focus on adding the core shadow with the knowledge that the reflected light value has already been drawn. So the goal of drawing the core shadow is to start to describe the more complex forms of the figure, but we need to be careful to still maintain the fundamental lightened shadow patterns of the larger forms. So let's take a look at the reference photo for the demonstration drawing. Let's first find some areas where the core shadow and reflected light are obvious. Here in the arm, you can see that dark band of the core shadow, and immediately to the left of the core shadow, you can see the band of reflected light. This section of the arm is about as close to a simple cylinder as we could hope for, and the light and shadow patterns reflect that. Now, let's take a look at the leg on our left. Here, we see a more complex pattern of light and shadow. This is because we have more muscle and bone pressing up from below the surface of the skin. The muscles in bone cause the core shadow to appear to jump in and out as it travels down the leg. With this in mind, take a look at the torso. Here at the torso, we see an even more complex collection of protrusions, and this, of course, creates much more complex lightened shadow patterns. But you'll notice that the reflected light is not as visible as say the leg on our left. For reflected light to be visible, there needs to be something to reflect it. But take a look at the upper left of the reference photo, there's nothing up there to reflect the light. So we really don't see much reflected light on the backside of the torso, but that should not stop you from drawing your core shadow at number four value, and letting the reflected light be a two or a three value. The only place we really do see much of a core shadow on the torso is down here at the bottom, and this of course, is because light is coming down from the light source hitting the upper thigh of the leg on our left, bouncing off and lighting the underside of the belly. So with all of this in mind, let's get to today's demonstration drawing. So working big to small, I'll start once again at the torso. As I'm drawing the core shadow, I want you to look back and forth from my drawing to the reference photograph, you'll see that I'm using the line of termination as a guide, even though I'm drawing a more complex core shadow that juts in and out. This jutting serrated line still follows the main line of termination that we drew when we simplify the lighten and shadow patterns. Now, there are a number of things I'd like to remind you of as you watch me draw the core shadow. The first thing is that this is an optical form of shading versus an anatomical form of shading. Now, I have studied anatomy for many years, and I have a deep understanding of the bones and muscles that are creating these variations in the core shadow. But that's not what I'm primarily thinking of as I'm shading. I'm actually using my observation skills to craft the complex core shadow. My intention is to craft the core shadow as it goes up and over each of the protrusions on the surface of the torso. I'm thinking more about communicating volume than anatomy. I'm comparing each of the protrusions by size and placement using the simplified line of termination to make sure that I'm maintaining the larger shadow pattern. You see each anatomical detail translates into a small protrusion. Each protrusion has its own size, shape, and placement. By capturing that, you'll be able to accurately convey anatomy without thinking about anatomy or having to know all of the anatomy underneath the surface. Again, I'm looking back and forth from the drawing to the reference photograph, carefully crafting the edge of the core shadow. Once I get to the bottom of the torso near the belly, I'll ask myself if there are any changes I need to make. I'll go back up into the core shadow line and make any corrections that I see when comparing back and forth from the photograph to the drawing. Once I've made my first pass at the core shadow for the torso, I'll move down to the leg on our left. Once again, you'll see me go through the same process for the leg. I'm carefully looking back and forth from the reference photograph to the drawing, crafting the edge of the core shadow. I'm carefully following the edge of the core shadow with my eyes, watching it go in and come out. I'm carefully evaluating both the direction and the length of the line that makes up each part of the core shadow edge. Now as you're doing this, mistakes are inevitable. This is a complex process that requires a lot of practice. Even when you make a mistake, feel free to first use your kneaded eraser to gently lift the pigment away from the paper. If this doesn't remove enough pigment, feel free to use your vinyl eraser. But remember, the vinyl eraser also smears pigment. So you'll always want to start with a kneaded eraser and lift as much pigment as possible first. I use my vinyl eraser as little as possible. In fact, you may not even see me use it in this course. Now it's important here to note that I'm just crafting the edge of the core shadow at the line of termination. This is a way to add complexity, but I have not yet shaded the entire core shadow. I'd also like you to notice that I'm exaggerating the darkness of the core shadow to enhance the three-dimensionality of the figure. Remember, shading is a process and you want to follow the process instead of rushing in and trying to draw details. One of the most common drawing mistakes I see is people starting at a particular location in their drawing and trying to capture all of the light and shadow patterns and correct values in one area before moving on to the next. But this is actually one of the most difficult ways to shade. The reason is that you need to have a network of values that makes sense in relationship to one another. If you try and shade by starting and then finishing in one small part of the body before moving on to the next and so on, it's highly unlikely that the values you will arrive at later on in the drawing will relate to the values that you started with. Its best instead to go value by value. That's why when we first divided light from shadow using a reflected light value, we handled all of the reflected light values over the whole drawing. We're now doing this same thing with the core shadow value. Making sure that no matter where we look in the drawing, the reflected light is the number three value and the core shadows are number four value. This makes a much more cohesive viewing experience for the viewer. Later on in the shading process, we'll add much more subtlety to the values. But remember, our goal at the beginning is to create a cohesive viewing experience that makes visual sense to the viewer. At this stage, you want to avoid chasing values around or getting caught up in minor details. More subtlety in detail will be added later on in the process. Just try and be patient and follow the shading system that I'm laying out here. As you can see, we're using the exact same visual approach for each part of the body. We're using our observation skills to carefully craft the edge of the core shadow. At this point, it's critical for you to understand that the edge of the core shadow is not a hard edge. Instead of using the tip of my pencil to create a hard edge, you'll notice that I'm using the side of my pencil to help create a diffused edge. This is another area that I frequently see beginners getting confused. They'll either make an edge that is way too soft, that takes forever to transition from light to dark across the surface of the figure, or they'll draw the edge of this shadow using a hard line, which makes the shadow edges look sharp and angular. By using the side of the pencil to craft this edge, it helps to communicate the roundness of the form. Now, I know that I'm asking you to observe a lot as I'm drawing, but I really want you to pay attention to the kind of line that I'm using to craft the core shadow edge. It's a diffused edge, not too soft, but not hard either. It has a firm softness to it, but it's still a very structured edge. Later on in the shading process, you'll learn how to correctly soften shadow edges, particularly at the end when we start to do all of the subtle refinements. But for now, it's okay to craft the edge of the core shadow using a line that is unified in both darkness and softness. Remember, the most important thing at this stage is visual clarity. We don't want a cacophony of details. Drawing using this kind of system is one of the best ways to make sure that the details later on makes sense in relationship to the whole. Now, let's take a look at the drawing I've been doing on white paper. Once again, at this early stage of the drawing, the process of drawing the core shadow is nearly identical to the one-week used on toned paper. I'm carefully crafting the edge of the core shadow at the line of termination, trying to record all of the details that I simplified during the previous lesson, but I'm still using that simplified line of termination from the previous lesson as a guide to make sure that when I add the details, they still make sense as a whole and maintain the larger lightened shadow patterns. After my first pass, I'll go back and add any details that I may have missed and make any corrections necessary. Now, it's time for you to apply what you've learned in this lesson. For today's project, you're going to use your drawing from the previous lessons, drawing the edge of the core shadow at the line of termination. This is an opportunity to begin to record the details of the core shadow as it travels up and over the various protrusions on the surface of the body, where bone and muscle come to the surface and alter the more basic lightened shadow patterns. Remember, it's important that you're using this side of the pencil lead as you draw the core shadow. This will make sure that the edge of the core shadow has a nice balance between firmness and softness, just like a real core shadow on the figure. Once you've completed your first pass, make sure to go back and make any corrections necessary or add any information you may have missed during the first pass. I've given you a lot of information in this lesson, and I encourage you to go back and rewatch this lesson before attempting it on your own. You want to make sure that you've absorbed and are thinking about all of the information presented in this lesson when you're working on your own drawing. Once you're done adding the core shadow to your own drawing, you'll be ready for the next lesson where you'll learn how to draw cast shadows. 5. Cast Shadows: Welcome to the fourth lesson in the shading section in the art and science of figure drawing series. In this lesson, you're going to learn how to draw cast shadows. A cast shadow is created when an object blocks light from the light source. The object blocking the light casts its shadow over any adjacent surfaces or objects that would have otherwise received light from the light source. In this drawing of an ovoid or an egg, you can clearly see the cast shadow on the surface the egg is sitting on. Now before we try and deal with cast shadows on a complex subject like the figure, let's review some more fundamental ideas. The first thing I'd like you to notice is, is that the shape of the cast shadow is determined by the shape of the object and the direction of the light source. In this drawing, you can clearly see that the cast shadow is also egg-shaped, just like the object that is casting it. But you can also see that the shadow is elongated. Because the light source is more to the side of the egg, the cast shadow appears to lengthen. Now I'm assuming of course, that you already have experience drawing cast shadows and lighting objects. So you should already be familiar with how the shape and proportions of a cast shadow can be distorted depending on the location of the light source. Now if you look at the cast shadow right underneath the egg, you can see that it is black. The cast shadow is the darkest value you can draw. Now I'm not using a black pencil in this course, I am using a more reddish pencil. But whatever tool you're drawing with, the cast shadow value will be the darkest value your pencil can make, a number five on the value scale. If you remember back to the Shading Fundamentals course, that darkest part of the cast shadow is called the occlusion shadow. But I'd also like you to notice that the further away the cast shadow gets from the object, the lighter the value gets. At the far edge of the cast shadow called the penumbra, you can see that the value is approaching a number four value on the five-step value scale that I've been using. I'd also like you to notice that right underneath the egg, we can see that the cast shadow has a hard edge. But if you move your eyes to the left, toward the penumbra of the cast shadow, you'll see that not only does the cast shadow get a little lighter, but the edge softens. In the final fundamental idea regarding cast shadows I'd like to address before we apply these ideas to more complex forms, is that the cast shadow shape not only mimics the object that is casting it, but the shape of the cast shadow also interacts with the topography of the surfaces or objects it is casting on to. So in this drawing, the egg is sitting on a flat surface, so the shape of the cast shadow appears flat. But now let's take a look at the cast shadows in this drawing. Here in this drawing, we can see the cast shadow of the egg on our left. Because the light is coming more from above than in our last drawing, you can see that this cast shadow is not as elongated. But now let's take a look at the cast shadow of the cone. Immediately to the left of the cone, we can see the hard edged, dark occlusion shadow running flat over the surface that the cone is sitting on. But instead of continuing flat across this surface, we see that the cast shadow gets intersected by the egg. We can see the remaining part of the shadow of the cone running up and over the curved surface of the egg. You'll also notice that this part of the cast shadow is slightly lighter and the edge is a little softer. This is an excellent simplified example of how a cast shadow is determined, both by the shape of the object itself, as well as the surface that the shadow is casting upon. Next, let's take a look at this familiar diagram. Let's start off looking at the most simple arrangement, the two eggs stacked on top of each other on the left. So you can see that the egg on top is blocking the light from the light source and casting its shadow onto the egg underneath. Just like we've talked about, you can see that right underneath the top egg, the cast shadow appears darker and its edge appears harder. The further away the cast shadow gets from the egg that is casting it, the lighter you can see it become, and you can also see that the edge starts to soften. Finally, take a look at the shape of the cast shadow. Right underneath the topic that's casting the shadow, you can see that the curve of the edge of the cast shadow mimics that of the egg above it. But as the cast shadow curves over the surface of the egg underneath, you can see the curve of the cast shadow change direction as it travels down the side of the egg underneath. Now because the exact shape of the cast shadow can be difficult to predict, it's important to carefully observe the cast shadow shape and how it changes as it falls over the surface of an object. Now let's take a look at the more complex pair of eggs in the middle of the page. As I mentioned previously, these eggs are connected by a membrane. So they do a great job at standing in for the volume of the rib cage and the pelvis connected by flesh, just like a real human figure. You'll also notice just like a real human figure, the side of this compound volume on our right appears to be stretching while the side on our left has to compress to accommodate for the stretch. So hopefully at this stage in your figure drawing career, you're already very familiar with the folds that occur at the side of the body that compresses. Here, you can see that the shadow cast by the upper chamber of this volume goes up and over the fold of the compressed side. Finally, let's take a look at the connected pair of egg-shaped volumes on the right. Now with this particular arrangement of volumes and the direction of the light source, you can see that there isn't a cast shadow. This is also very common. You won't always see a shadow casting across the surface of the figure. I just want you to be prepared to observe and draw it when you do. So now, let's take a look at a real figure and it's one of the most common cast shadows you'll draw, the shadow cast by a breast. When looking at the breast, we can see all three of the primary shadow conditions: The core shadow, the reflected light, and of course the cast shadow. This cast shadow exemplifies all of the properties we've talked about thus far. You can see that right underneath the breast, the cast shadow is at its darkest and the edge is hard. Remember, the occlusion shadow, where the shadow originates, will be the darkest value in your drawing. The edge of the cast shadow here will be the hardest shadow edge in your drawing. But as we follow the cast shadow towards the right, you can see the edge soften and the value lightened. It's not dramatic, but you can see this change if you're looking for it. Of course, the edge of the cast shadow is curved just like the breast. From this particular point of view, we don't see the shadow of the breast curve around the side of the torso that much. But in some poses from some views, you will. Now the only cast shadow we're seeing on the figure itself is the shadow cast by the breast onto the torso. But this is not the only cast shadow in the photo. Just like a breast can cast a shadow onto the torso that it's resting upon, so too can the entire figure cast a shadow onto the surface it's on. The most prominent cast shadow is here. Now in the photograph, you can see the cast shadow moving up and over each fold in the fabric. It's really up to you whether or not you want to capture that kind of detail. I'll show you some easy ways to edit these folds later on in this demonstration. But the shadow cast by the figure onto the surface it's resting upon, creates the illusion of the figure being grounded. By drawing this cast shadow, you attach the figure to a ground plane. It stops the figure from appearing to just float in empty space. You can see a second cast shadow of this type right here underneath the knee. So the figure can cast a shadow either onto itself or on to an adjacent surface. Now let's take a look at the cast shadows in the reference photo that I'm using for my demonstration drawing. First, let's talk about the shadows cast by the figure onto the surface that the figure is standing on. Those two shadows are of course, here and here. You'll notice that both of these shadows are of course, very dark and hard edged. But as we've talked about, they both get lighter and their edges get softer the further away they get from the figure. Now because I'm not focusing on drapery, in the demonstration drawing, I'll show you how I simplify these kinds of shadows. But for now, let's take a look at the shadows cast by one part of the body onto another. The most prominent one is here. Here we see a shadow cast by the arm onto the torso. You can see that right in the pit of the arm, where the arm meets the torso, is the darkest part of this shadow. Now the shape of the part of the arm casting the shadow is a simple cylinder with more or less straight edges. But take a look at the shape of the shadow it is casting. We can see it travel over the pectoral muscle to the nipple. But at the nipple we see the cast shadow changed direction and traveled down the underside of the pectoral muscle. Once the cast shadow reaches the end of the pectoral muscle, we then see it change direction again and curve around the torso and out of sight. Now if the shadow of this arm were cast on a flat surface, it would just mimic the shape of the arm. But because the shadow is cast over a human torso, we see it flow up and over the various parts of the anatomy describing the topography of the torso. This is a very interesting cast shadow that you'll see me draw in just a few minutes. Now there are two more prominent shadows cast by one part of a body onto another. Take a look to see if you can find them on your own, before I point them out. Let's talk about the shadow cast by the belly onto the lower abdomen. The part of the abdomen that the shadow is cast upon isn't too curved, so the shape of the cast shadow pretty closely mimics the shape of the belly. The last cast shadow we're going to talk about before the demonstration drawing is the shadow cast by the arm onto the leg on our right. In the demonstration drawing, you'll see me treat this shadow differently than any of the others,and there are some very important reasons why. In fact, I'm going to edit this cast shadow out entirely from my drawing, and here's why. First, this cast shadow is disconnected from the arm that is casting it. This can create confusion in the viewer who may not understand how light and shadow work. It appears out of place, and because it's so far away from the arm that is casting it, its shape and edges are ill formed and don't tell us much about the shape of the arm that is casting it. Finally, this shadow doesn't tell us much about the leg it is cast upon. When they are drawn, shadows like this end up looking more like dark blotches that confuse the viewer, rather than descriptive elements of shadow that help describe the form to the viewer. Remember, we are not here to copy, we are here to communicate, but clearly communicating the lightened shadow patterns of the body to a viewer sometimes means editing out information, distilling it down to its essence, and when done intelligently, viewers will never know this kind of information is missing. Now let's get to today's demonstration drawing. At this stage of the shading process, I've already divided light from shadow using a simplified line of termination. I then laid in a light wash of value in all of the parts of the body in shadow. Next, I crafted the core shadows, focusing specifically on the edge of the core shadow at the line of termination. When adding the core shadow, I begin to record the details where the shadow begins to describe the numerous anatomical forms that are visible on the surface of the body. If you remember, the initial division of light and shadow was done using approximately a number three value on the five-step value scale that we're using, and in actuality it was probably a little bit lighter than a three, somewhere between a three and a two, the edge of the core shadow with a line of termination was crafted using a number four value. Now I'm ready to add the darkest value, the cast shadow value, which will be a number five on your value scale and will be the darkest value your pencil can make. Let's start with the shadow that is cast by the arm onto the torso. We know that the light is coming from the upper right and it's hitting the top right side of the arm, but it's also blocking the light from hitting this part of the torso. Now here, you'll see me darken the contour of the underside of the arm using a hard line. You can also see that at the very end of this line, right at the armpit, I'm subtly indicating the direction of the ellipse of the cylinder of the arm. If you look at the same spot in the reference photo, you can see why. Now you'll see me define the edge of the cast shadow and began to darken it. Now at this first parts to darkening the cast shadow, I'm not yet pushing the pencil to its darkest value. Remember, the darker the mark is, the harder it is to erase. I want to make sure the cast shadow that I'm drawing is working before darkening it all the way to a number five value. Just like crafting the edge of the core shadow, you can see that I'm taking care to carefully craft the shape of the cast shadow. But even though I haven't darkened did to a number five value yet, you can still see that I'm drawing the edge with a harder line. If you look at the cast shadow in the reference photo, you can see that it runs all the way down the abdomen until it reaches the navel, but I think the cast shadow will be more powerful, if I can show it wrapping around the torso and disappearing. You can see that I've only drawn the cast shadow down to just below the pectoral muscle, and from there you can see it turn the corner of the torso and disappear around the other side. Once the shape of the cast shadow is working, you'll see me flip my pencil round into the tripod grip so I can bear down on the tip of the pencil. For the first time in this drawing, you'll see me push the pencil to its darkest value. This is the number five value on the value scale. Now, later on in this course, you'll learn one of the last phases of the shading process, refinement. When I'm making the final refinements to the drawing, I will likely darken the cast shadow more, but for now, you can see the number five value quickly lighten as it gets further away from the arm, you'll see me use a very similar strategy when drawing the shadow cast by the belly over the lower abdomen. I'll first draw the shape of the cast shadow looking back and forth from my drawing to the reference photo and I'll use a hard edge for the cast shadow shape. Because this cast shadow shape is smaller and not as complicated, I feel comfortable flipping the pencil around into the tripod grip and using the number five value in the first pass. If you're confident about your cast shadow shapes, this can be a time-saver, but remember, it's very difficult to erase cast shadows once they're drawn. If you're not 100 percent sure that the cast shadow is working, you might want to use a number four value before pushing it all the way to a number five, just to make sure it's doing what you think it should be. Now let's move down to the feet. In the reference photo, you can see that the shadow cast by the foot and leg has a lot of information as it moves up and over all of the faults of the drapery. But even if we copied all of the tiny changes in the cast shadow as it moves over the drapery perfectly accurately, it wouldn't clarify anything about the figure. I'm going to simplify this cast shadow and focus on what it does best, ground the figure on the ground plane. You can see I've drawn a very simple shape for the cast shadow of the leg onto the ground plane. As I'm sure you've noticed, you have a lot of freedom with cast shadows. Most people find it very difficult to tell if a cast shadow is drawn accurately, so casts shadows are a great opportunity for some artistic license to communicate the kinds of things you want to communicate in your drawing. You can see right underneath the foot where it hits the ground plane, I've pushed the pencil to it's number five value. But as it gets further away, I let the strokes lighten and gets slightly farther apart from one another. Now I'll do the same thing with the shadow cast by the other leg onto the ground plane. If you look at the reference photo, you can see that this cast shadow appears to emerge from the back of the foot near the heel. Now in the reference photo, you can see that this shadow cast by the leg on our left meets up with the cast shadow for the rest of the figure on the backdrop behind the model. Now I'm not going to draw the entire cast shadow, but I am going to take this opportunity to imply that the cast shadow goes on beyond what I've drawn. This also begins to add a sense of atmosphere to the drawing. We'll talk more about atmospherics later on in this course. Hopefully, you can see that with the cast shadows now drawn in, the figure takes on a much greater sense of dimension. It also now seems to have a sense of gravity because the figure appears attached to a ground plane. Now as the shading process goes on, these shadows are going to require a lot of refinement, but we have now addressed all three of the major shadow conditions, the core shadow, the reflected light, and the cast shadow. Now it's time to get you drawing. For today's project, you're going to add cast shadows to your drawing. It's important to remember that every pose is different and will have different kinds and different amounts of cast shadows. But there are two different kinds of cast shadows that you're primarily going to be looking for. The first is when one part of the figure casts its shadow over another part of the figure. The second is when the figure casts its shadow onto an adjacent surface or a surface that it standing or sitting upon. Now before you begin your project, let me remind you of the important elements of a cast shadow. The cast shadows you draw should be hard edged, but these edges should slightly soften the further away the shadow gets from the part of the body that is casting it. Next, the occlusion shadows you draw should be the darkest value your pencil can make, and the darkest value in the entire drawing. Next, you'll want to craft the shape of the cast shadow carefully, but feel free to alter it depending on what you want the cast shadow to communicate to a viewer. Remember, we are not here to copy, we are here to communicate. Finally, if a cast shadow appears unappealing, confusing, or awkward, feel free to leave it out altogether. As always, good luck with your project today and I will see you back here for the next lesson when we are going to move to the lit side of the figure and learn to draw center lights and mid tones. 6. Midtones: Welcome to the fifth lesson of the shading section in the art and science of figure drawing series. In this lesson, you're going to learn how to draw midtones. A Midtone is any value that is between the darker shadow values and the highlight. All midtones are found on the lit side of the line of termination. The vast majority of the anatomical details that you see rendered on the lit side of the figure are midtones. To get a sense of the different midtones that we'll be working with today, let's start off by looking at this familiar diagram. Let's start off once again by looking at the pair of eggs on the far left. For the last three lessons, we've been focused on the shadow side of the line of termination. But in the next two lessons we're going to be focusing primarily on the lit side of the line of termination. Before we get into the midtones, let me take you through the values that can be found on the lit side of the line of termination. Let's start with the highlight. The highlight will be the brightest value in your drawing, a number one value on the five-step value scale that I've been working with. You'll learn more about highlights in the next lesson, but it's not a midtone, so we won't be focusing on it today. It's just important that you know, what it is. You can differentiate midtones from the highlight. The brightest midtone that we'll be working with, which is not quite as bright as the highlight is called the center light. The center light can be found at the edge of a rounding form where it is closest to the light source. Again, I'd like you to notice that it is not as bright as the highlight, even though in this diagram it is still drawn with a white pencil. Ignoring the highlight, I'd like you to slowly move your eyes across the surface of the egg down and towards the left, towards the line of termination. You'll notice that as the surface of the egg gets further from the light source and closer to the line of termination, it gradually gets darker until it hits the line of termination where the light ends and shadow begins. Now that we're starting to work with both light and shadow, there are some important ideas that you need to keep in mind. I'd like to remind you how we define what light is and what Shadow is. For our purposes, a shadow is any part of the form that is not receiving direct light. That is any part of the form that is not hit with light coming directly from the light source. The values on the shadow side of the line of termination include, of course, the core shadow and reflected light. Now, as you should already know, the core shadow and reflected light both have some small amount of light within them. That's why they're different values with reflected light receiving more light than the core shadow. But even though reflected light has some light in it, because it's not coming directly from the light source, it is considered part of the shadow. A cast shadow is where light is blocked entirely. Only parts of a volume that are being hit with light coming directly from the light source are considered to be in light. Light values include the center light, the highlight, and all mid tones. Before we move on, I need to teach you one of the most important things you're going to learn about organizing the complex network of values on the surface of the faker. No shadows should ever be as light as any part of the figure being hit with light directly from the light source. This means that not even the brightest part of the shadow, the brightest area of reflected light should be as light as the darkest midtone on the lit side. The reason this is important to know is because it's very common for students to look at reflected light and think it appears as bright or brighter than the darker midtones on the lit side of the line of termination. But this is merely an optical illusion. Here's an easy way to illustrate this. Here you'll see me isolate the brightest part of the reflected light and the darkest midtone. When you compare them, you can clearly see that the darkest midtone is still a little bit brighter than the brightest part of the reflected light, which is the brightest part of the shadow. Now, let's get back to mid tones. Now you should understand that on a simple rounded form, like an egg, the form gets lighter as it approaches the light source. As the form begins to curve away from the light source, it gets darker until it hits the line of termination and goes into shadow. But of course, the figure is much more complicated. Let's see how the midtones work on a more complex form. You should remember this diagram of a basic egg with three smaller protrusions pressing out from the surface. We've already addressed the lowest protrusion when we talked about the core shadow. But before we talk about the two protrusions that are in the light, Let's talk about the center light. You can see it here, just like in the previous diagram, you can see that the center light is brightest at the edge, near the light source, but the form gets darker as it approaches the line of termination. But of course the center line of the more basic form is interrupted by the smaller protrusions. So first let's focus on this top protrusion. Each one of these protrusions is like a small dome, as if we sliced off the very top of a sphere and adhered to the surface of the larger egg. Now because the top protrusion is placed very close to where the highlight would be on the more basic form of the larger egg, you can see that it's getting hit with a lot of light. In fact, it even has its own highlight. Not all protrusions will have their own highlight. It really depends on the size and placement of any particular protrusion, but larger protrusions that are placed near the center light often have their own highlights. Now ignoring the highlight for a moment, you can see that each protrusion also has its own center light, just like the larger volume of the egg, is lightest on the top right side and darkest on the bottom left. You can see that the protrusion follows this same lighting pattern. It has a lighter side near the top right and a darker side near the bottom left. Now remember, even though the bottom left of the protrusion is darker, this is not considered a shadow. It's just receiving less light than the top light. This is why we call it a midtone and not a shadow. Remember, even your darkest midtone should still be lighter than the lightest part of any shadow. Next, let's take a look at the middle protrusion. Now this middle protrusion is not facing the light source as directly as their protrusion from above that we just talked about. This of course means that it's not receiving as much light. You can see that even though it has a minor highlight, the highlight is not nearly as bright as the protrusion above. It also has a lighter side and a darker side, but both of these values are darker than their counterparts found on the protrusion above. Now, let's take a moment and focus on the darker side of this protrusion. Sometimes a protrusion will turn away from the light source enough that the value of the mid-tone may verge on the value of the core shadow. If a form protrudes enough, it may have its own core shadow and cast a shadow across the larger form. This is why it's so important to be able to recognize the lightened shadow conditions on the surface of the faker and understand what values they need to be drawn at. Later on, you'll actually see me draw a protrusion that is large enough to cast a shadow over the surface of the body. Now, before we move on, I'd like you to compare these two protrusions, there are approximately the same size and shape, but the one above is lighter all around because it's on a part of the larger volume, but it's getting hit with more light. Here on the left side of this screen, you can see two protrusions, the shape of which are commonly found on the surface of the actual figure. But of course, on a real figure, protrusions won't have defined edges. If you take a look at the protrusion on the upper right, this is what you'll most commonly find. You'll see a more soft and amorphous shadow shape on the surface of the figure, you'll still be able to identify a darker side and a lighter side, but the mid tones on an actual figure will be softer and less firmly to find, what you need to do is get good at imagining a boundary around them to make sure that your midtones are structured and communicating specific forms. With all of this in mind, let's take a look at an actual model. Here is a close-up of the torso of the model from the reference photo I'm drawing from. Now, when most students are confronted with all of the anatomical details of the figure, they tend to get overwhelmed. But what you're going to learn right now are some strategies that will allow you to observe, organize, and draw all of the little lumps and bumps found on the surface of the body. What we want to avoid is what I call shadow chasing. You don't want to get caught up drawing little patches of value wherever your eye happens to fall. Let's start by focusing on one, protrusion on the surface of the body. I'll outline one of the serratus muscles. Again, you don't need to know the names of the muscles yet, but you do need a strategy to organize and draw them. Now if you focus on the values inside the outline that I just laid down, you can see the exact same shadow patterns as the ones we just talked about. In the upper right portion of this shape, you can see that it's a little bit lighter than the lower left. Remember, if you're ever having trouble discerning values, letting your eyes go softly out of focus or squinting can help simplify them. To help you see the values better, let's blackout everything but the protrusion. Can you see the shift in value, darker in the lower left and a little lighter on the upper right? Now, of course, the protrusion on this surface of the actual model has a much softer edge. But now that you know what you're looking for, see if you can discern the basic shape of this protrusion without the outline. Can you see it? Remember, a change in value is always evidence of a change in the volume. Now take a look to the sides of the protrusion that we've just been focusing on. Hopefully, you can see a number of them. Even though they're softer edged than what we looked at in the diagram, my hope is that you can start to discern their shapes. If you need some help, let me outline them for you. Hopefully you can see that in each one of these outlines, there's a lighter side and a darker side, even though it may be subtle. Just like we saw in the diagrams earlier, the protrusions that are closer to the light source are overall lighter than the protrusions that are further away from the light source. Now let's talk about how they're organized. If you thought of each one of these protrusions as a bead, the string that would connect them all together would look like this. This is the gesture, if you will, of these four protrusions. You always want to look for ways to relate details to each other and to the figure as a whole. Now a quick note about anatomy. Now all four of these protrusions occur where the serratus muscles attach to the rib cage. I know this because I've studied anatomy. The study of anatomy helps to demystify all of these little lumps and bumps, and I highly encourage you to study it. But it's a much more valuable skill to be able to observe, organize, and draw visual information in light and shadow, even if you don't know what it is. But until you have a better sense of anatomy, you just want to get good at thinking about every little lump and bump on the surface of the body as volumetric, with a lighter side and a darker side. You also want to be on the lookout for ways of organizing this information. Like how they relate to one another and how they relate to the figure as a whole. Now, these are just some of the protrusions found on this figure. But hopefully you can see that each one of them has a lighter side and a darker side, and that the protrusions closer to the upper right are generally lighter than the protrusions closer to the lower left, just like we saw on the diagrams. Keeping all of this in mind, let's get back to the demonstration drawing. Before rushing in and drawing the mid tones, I'm first going to use my kneaded eraser to clean up any marks or smudges that may have occurred on the lit side of the line of termination. This will become even more important when we start preparing to add white pencil. But that will come in the next lesson. Once the lit side of the line of termination is clean, we can start addressing the center light. Now, of course, the brightest part of the center light will add in the next lesson when we use white pencil. But for now, we want to draw the transition from dark to light as the larger parts of the body turn toward the light source. First, let's focus on the larger egg-shaped volume of the torso. We know that it's going to be darker nearest to the line of termination and get lighter as it approaches the light source. The lightest areas in the whole drawing will be up here near the shoulder. Which is the closest part of the body to the light source. Using the side of my pencil, I'm going to lay in a very light washer value starting at the bottom left that gets lighter as it moves toward the upper right. Now to help soften the individual pencil marks that are visible in this first pass. I'll change the direction of my stroke and go over it once again. With a very light value that goes from dark to light as it approaches the light source. You can repeat this as often as you need until the individual strokes are no longer visible. But remember, each pass will slightly darken the value, and you want to make sure that the darkest midtone is still lighter than the brightest part of the reflected light in the shadows. Once I'm satisfied, I'll repeat this step with each individual part of the body. Once again, for the leg on our left we can see that the darker value is at the bottom left and it gets lighter as it approaches the upper right. Even though the upper thigh of the leg on our right is oriented differently, you can still see that the lower left is a little darker and the upper right is lighter. Now we'll repeat this process for the lower section of the leg on our right, as well as the arm. The seemingly subtle step adds a sense of richness and volume to a drawing that wouldn't otherwise be there, and it's so often missed by beginning drawing students. Who tend to focus more on tiny details than the overall patterns. But it's the larger lightened shadow patterns that give the best sense of dimension not the details. But once the larger patterns have been handled, we can focus on the details. Let's start with the shoulder. As you can see in the reference photo, the deltoid muscle is an egg-shaped volume. Of course, like all of the details we're going to draw today, the lower left of this egg-shaped volume is darker and the upper right is lighter. Using the side of my pencil to draw a line that soft edged and very light in value, I will darken the lower left section of the egg-shaped volume. But because the deltoid muscle isn't simply an egg shape, I'll then ask, how does this form deviate from a more basic volume of an egg? On the upper-left of the deltoid, we can see a line of midtone that travels along the scapula. Just like grafting the core shadow, we want to look back and forth from the reference photograph to our drawing. Remember, even if you don't know what a particular bump is in atomically, you can still translate it into a volume that has a lighter side and a darker side. That's the key. Being able to translate every shift in value to a shift in topography of the body. Now let's move down to the lower angle of the scapula. Now whether you know this or not, there's a muscle, the teres major, that runs from the bottom of the scapula up toward the humorous. But even if you don't know the name of the muscle, hopefully you can still see the elongated diagonal egg shape that runs from the bottom of the shoulder blade toward the arm. Of course, because the light sources on the upper right, the lower left section of this volume will go into shadow. So I'll use the side of my pencil to lay down a light midtone. Now let's move down to the serratus muscles that we talked about earlier in this lesson. If you remember, there are four protrusions where the individual serratus muscles attach to the rib cage. We've already handled the first one when we drew the line of termination and the core shadow. If you remember, they all line up. Keeping this guideline in mind, using the side of my pencil, I'll now draw this soft light midtone value of each one. You'll notice that as these move left to right, the midtone value of each protrusion will get slightly lighter because the protrusions near the right are closer to the light source. At this stage, you should be good at recognizing this pattern. No matter how big the protrusion is, what shape it is, or more wear on the body it is, you can see that the midtone values are darker near the lower left and lighter near the upper right. Overall, the protrusions there that are closer to the light source are lighter and the ones that are further away are darker. Now you'll see me go around the rest of the body applying this principle. Anytime I see a blotch of shadow, I'm not simply going to try and draw it. I'm going to ask myself what volume is causing it and what is this volume size and placement? Once I understand a volume size, shape, and placement, even if I don't know what the specific anatomy is, I will understand how to draw the darker midtone on the lower left. Now even though we're working with details, I'm still working generally big to small. I'm trying to draw the most prominent midtones first before moving on to less important details. Ultimately, the level of detail is up to you, but this is an opportunity to record all of the small midtone details on the lit side of the line of termination. Here is my drawing after adding all of the midtones that seemed important to me. Now it's very common that after you think you've completed the midtones on one section of the body, after moving on to another, you may notice something that you've missed in previous sections you once thought completed. This is perfectly normal. You're encouraged to revisit parts of the body that you've already addressed to make any edits, alterations, or additions. Now it's time to get you drawing. For your project today, you're going to add the midtones to the drawing that you've been working on. You'll start by drawing the transition from dark to light across the surface of the larger forms. Remember, your darkest midtones will be near the line of termination, and the value will gradually get lighter as it approaches the center light near the part of the volume closest to the light source. From there, you can start to add the details on the lit side of the line of termination. Always remember that your midtones will be somewhere between a number three and number one value, and no midtone should ever be as dark as even the brightest part of a shadow. When you're drawing the details on the lit side of the line of termination using midtones, remember to look for patterns and ways of organizing the complex anatomical information. Finally, you want to get in the habit of looking at every midtone shift in value as evidence of a shift in typography. This means that you always want to think in terms of volume. Even in the smallest anatomical details, one part of the anatomy will turn more toward the light and be lighter, and another part will turn more away from the light and beat darker. As always, good luck with your project today and I will see you back here for the next lesson when you're going to learn about highlights and how to refine your drawing. 7. Highlights & Refinements: Welcome to the sixth lesson in the shading section of the Art and Science of Figure Drawing series. In this lesson, you're going to learn how to draw highlights, and after that, you're going to learn to refine your drawing and how to bring it to a high level of finish. Once again, let's start off by looking at this diagram, a highlight is the brightest part of the drawing. A highlight occurs when light from the light source hits a suitably reflective object, bounces off and reflects directly into the eyes of the viewer, you tend to only find highlights on rounded objects, on ovoids or other spherical objects. The highlights tend to be round in shape, but if you remember on cylinders the highlights tend to be linear. Now this drawing is done on colored paper, so we're drawing the highlights using a white pencil, the brightest highlights will be number one value on the value scale. When drawing on colored or toned paper, you'll create the brightest highlights by pressing down with a white pencil using the tripod grip, to make the brightest value the white pencil can make. However, on white paper, the highlights are created by leaving the paper white and not putting any pigment in the areas that you want the highlights to be. I'll demonstrate both of these techniques in just a few minutes now and using toned or colored paper in addition to drawing highlights with a white pencil, you can also brighten the center lights, but the center lights should not be as bright as the brightest highlights as you can see in this diagram. Now we have a lot to cover in this lesson, so let's get right to it. Now before we draw the highlights, there are two things I'd like to point out, the first is that the values that I've drawn using a darker pencil already doing most of the work to communicate the light and shadow patterns and add a sense of three dimensionality to the figure, if you're drawing up until this point is not communicating lightened shadow properly, adding the highlights will not help. The second thing I'd like to address, is that before you draw any highlights, you must thoroughly clean the areas of the paper where you want the highlights to be drawn, white is an incredibly delicate color, if any darker pigment is on the paper when the white is added, it will tend to dim the brightness of the highlight, so first you'll see me lifting as much pigment is I can off of the surface of the paper with my kneaded eraser. Next, I'll scrub the paper using my vinyl eraser to get off any remaining pigment. It's important that you use your drafting brush to wipe away any bits of eraser, not your hand, your hand can smear that pigment, but a drafting brush will gently remove the bits of eraser without smudging the drawing. Once this is done, I'll start adding the highlights using the tripod grip in bearing down on the tip of the white pencil. I'm reserving this technique only for the brightest areas of the highlights. Now want a highly reflective surface, the highlights would have a hard edge, but the human body is not highly reflective like a mirror, so the highlights will have a more diffused edge. But even with a diffused edge, every highlight will have its own shape, you'll want to focus very carefully on crafting the shapes of your highlights, even though they may be slightly amorphous. To diffuse the edge of the highlight, you'll see me use two different techniques, when drawing using the tripod grip, I can simply lower the pressure that I'm putting on the pencil, this will create a less bright value and will automatically create slightly softer lines. You'll also see me switch to the overhand grip and lay in a light wash of white Using the broad side of the tip of the pencil. When we compare the highlight on the shoulder to the highlight on the upper arm, you can see that the shape of the shoulder highlight is more rounded and the shape of the highlight on the upper arm is more linear because the upper arm is more cylindrical. Now the highlights on the shoulder and the upper arm, were by far the brightest highlights in the drawing. But remember, in addition to drawing the brightest highlights, we can also use the white pencil to brighten the center lights. Now you don't want to go overboard with a white pencil, but you want to take this opportunity to look around your drawing to see what values on the figure seem like they would benefit by being a little brighter than the value of the paper, now this isn't always obvious. Generally speaking, the darker the value of the paper, the more white pencil will be required to make the highlights and center lights look natural. Now I think that there should be some white pencil on the upper torso near the pectorals on the leg on our left near the upper thigh, and the leg on our right near the upper thigh. As you watch me add the white pencil, here's something to think about. When I'm drawing a gradation like the center light, I always leave some bare paper between the center light drawn with a white pencil and the mid-tone strong with darker pigment, this gives a more natural look to the gradation and reduces the possibility of getting darker pigment in your white pencil or vice versa, remember, they tend to muddy one another. Now let's take a look at how the process of highlights work on white paper. When drawing on white paper, highlights are much more about erasing than they are drawing. For the most part, I'll use my kneaded eraser to lift out the areas of highlight. One of the things you'll frequently see me do, is shape the kneaded eraser into a point or a scalloped edge, so I can lift out specific highlight shapes. But just like on colored or toned paper, if you need more pigment lifted, you can always use a vinyl eraser to scrub the paper back to white. Now the highlights in the center lights are the only part of the drawing process that are really that different, when you're drawing on white paper versus colored or toned paper. Only the brightest areas of highlight on the figure should be left purely white. When using white paper, you can see that even the brighter areas of the center light often still have a small amount of pigment in them. That being said, when drawing on white paper, you can let your drawing be higher in contrast, meaning more white being shown. Having more white on white paper looks more natural than adding too much white pencil, on colored, or toned paper. But this comes down to a more subjective aesthetic decision, I encourage you to do some experimenting to see what looks good to you. Now let's get back to our primary demonstration drawing, when we're going to start the part of the process that I like the most, the refinement process. From here on out, we want to keep one primary question in mind, and that is, what does this drawing need to be finished? Now you need to understand that this is a subjective question, there is no single correct answer. What I hope to do here is give you some different ways of thinking about it, as well as some practical strategies to employ. The first thing I'm going to do is refine the contours of the drawing, now you certainly don't want your drawing to have a uniform outer contour, this will look like a cartoon-ish outline, but you do want to emphasize some of the contours. Here, you can see me using a sharp hard line to define the edge of the deltoid muscle, this helps to bring the deltoid forward as it's one of the parts of the body that is closer to us, and this also helps separate it from the areas of the body that are further away, as well as the background. You can also see that I've used to darker line to emphasize the overlap where the scapula moves in front of the back of the rib-cage. Here you can see me darkening some of the contours of the arm to help bring it forward, as well as showcase some of the more complex curves on the contour, but you'll notice that the contours on the arm are not as dark as the contours I used on the shoulder. One of the reasons is that the shoulder muscle must hold the arm up so the muscles are flexing using darker lines as a way to add a sense of tension to the drawing in areas where the muscles are tensed. I certainly wouldn't say this is a hard rule, it's just a strategy you can use. Remember, this part of the drawing is much more subjective and this is one of the reasons you frequently hear me say, we are not just copying. These darker contours cannot be found in the reference photos, they are using the language of drawing to communicate something to a viewer that goes beyond the information in the reference photo. In the leg on our left, you'll see me use darker lines to emphasize the overlaps were while one muscle group comes in front of another, as well as darker lines to communicate the ellipses of these forms. You'll notice that when an outer contour dives inside a form, usually I transition it to a more diffused line, you can see I'm using very dark and sharp lines around the edges of the bones of the knee, this is a way to communicate to the viewer that the bones are hard and angular. Conversely, when drawing lines around a muscle group, I'll use slightly softer lines to communicate the pliability of muscle. When drawing the contours around faults and flesh, I'll often use even softer lines, again, there's no system to this line quality, what I'm trying to avoid is a uniform outline. To that end, I look for any reason to vary my line quality it to communicates something to the viewer. Now I'll shift to more subtle details and draw the contours of some of the smaller forums, including the toes and the feet, you'll also see me adding details in the hands. The hand that is on our left, I want to fade into the background. I'm going to just imply it using vague soft lines. This brings up another critical question. What do you want the areas of focus to be in your drawing? In this drawing, I want the focus to be the torso, the upper legs, and the arm that is closest to us. A different artist may have chosen different areas of focus. Remember, this is a subjective decision. But this means that I can leave other details, like the hands and the feet less finished. That way the viewer will tend to focus on the more finished parts of the drawing that I want to be the focus. Now it's okay if you want to bring every part of the figure to the same level of finish. Now I'll shift my focus back to values. In particular, I'm going to focus on the core shadow. You'll see me move around the drawing, doing three different things to the core shadow. I'll be darkening the core shadow, I'll be softening the edge between the core shadow and the reflected light, and I'll be refining the edge of the core shadow at the line of termination. Now, even though I'm darkening the core shadow, it's important that it is not as dark as the cast shadow. It's also important that the core shadow is never hard edged. The cast shadow still needs to be the darkest shadows and the shadows with the hardest edges. The core shadow at the line of termination should be one of the most detailed parts of the drawing. Because this is one of the most important places that viewers eyes will go to, to look for detail and a description of the form. Conversely, you'll see that there is very little detail in the shadows. There doesn't need to be because the line of termination in the mid tones are where eye will go to look for more detailed information. At this stage of the drawing process, I open the process up to any previous steps. I give myself permission to work on any part of the drawing that seems to need addressing. At this stage you'll see me do things like darken the transition from the mid tones to the center light, work on line quality, add anatomical details that I may have missed, anything that will make the drawing look resolved and once again, it is critical that you understand that every artist will do this a little differently. With practice and experience, you'll develop your own sense of aesthetics. But most of what I'm doing during this phase is adding anatomical details. Now at this stage, the details come much easier. I put so much work at the beginning of the drawing to making sure that the basic forms were drawn well and in proportion. I also put a lot of work into crafting a lightened shadow pattern that was accurate and descriptive. Once the big picture items in a drawing are working, the details almost handle themselves. You just want to remember that anatomy needs to be translated into volume. In addition to thinking about the body as muscle and bone, you always want to ask yourself from the biggest forms to the smallest details, what volume am I drawing, and how is light operating on this volume? You also want to ask yourself, what values am I drawing and how do these values relate from the details to the bigger picture? It's also okay to lighten values, if you feel that you need to. Just remember to always use your kneaded eraser first so that you're lifting pigment instead of smearing it. Now I'll shift to working on some of the smallest details in the head. First, you'll see me lay in some of the facial features, including the contour edge of the face as well as the ear. To do this, I'm using the tools and techniques that I taught in the gesture course, as well as the volume in structure course. Now, hair poses some interesting challenges. Hair, of course, has a texture to it. But for the purposes of this course, it's also critical to remember that hair also has a volumetric shape. Just like any other part of the body, you want to first focus on the volume that the individual hairs create when they come together. On this figure, we can see most of the shape of the cranium, which is of course an egg shaped volume. You see the same light and dark pattern that we would see on any egg shaped volume in this drawing, with the darkest masses of hair being on the lower left and the lighter masses of hair being on the upper right. Now in addition to the mass of hair that is cropped close to the egg shaped volume of the cranium, this model also has a second massive hair. But just like any other volume, you can see that the lower left of this new mass of hair is dark and the upper right is lighter. For the shorter hair at the base of the cranium, you'll see me using short dark strokes to give the hair some texture. But you'll notice that I'm also making sure that I'm maintaining the overall light and shadow pattern that's on the cranium. In order to give the hair a sense of volume and texture, I'll now add some thin dark strokes. But these sharp dark strokes are not placed randomly, the darkest of these strokes and the highest concentration of them will go on the part of the cranium that is in shadow. The individual hairs and the mass of hair on top of the head are much longer, so I'll use much longer strokes. But once again, you can see that the darkest of these strokes and the most prominent are drawn on the shadow side of this mass. Now the focus of my drawing and the focus of this course is on shading the body. Once I've added the details that I want to in the head, I'm going to shift gears. I'm now entering the final phase of this drawing. This is one of the most subjective parts of the figure drawing process. Because when a drawing is finished differs from artist to artist and even drawing to drawing. But let me take you through some of the things that I'm thinking about and what a finished drawing means to me. If there were one word that I wanted people to use when describing my figure drawings, it would be dynamic. I want my figure drawings to have a sense of excitement and drama. Now much of this drama comes from the exaggerated gesture that I used at the beginning of this drawing, long before the shading began. But now, I'll draw some atmospheric flourishes to accentuate the drama. Even though I'm not going to render the specific shape of the cast shadow, it provides some interesting atmospheric opportunities. I'll quickly draw some shading lines to imply the cast shadow. I want you to notice how quickly I'm drawing these shading lines. This gives them a sense that they're careening out of control and nearly coming apart. They imply a sense of movement. This is what I mean by drama. It's not something I've observed in the photograph and rendered or copied. Instead, I'm using the language of drawing to imply something more ephemeral. I'm essentially using abstract lines to add a sense of visual excitement to the drawing. I'll also enhance the gesture just slightly by letting some of the lines seem to fly off the figure, particularly at the shoulder and the hand. This gives the drawing a sense of movement as if we just captured the figure in a fast motion. You can almost think of these lines as a motion blur. Now you may not enjoy these aesthetic flourishes, and that's completely fine. There's no requirement for you to add them, but you do need to think about what a finished figure drawing means to you. With that question in mind, it's time to get you drawing. Your project for today is to add the highlights to your drawing and then bring it to a sense of completion, whatever that means to you. Let me leave you with a few final thoughts as you finish your drawing. First, whether you're doing your highlights with a white pencil or just leaving a white piece of paper blank in the highlighted areas, if you've done any other drawing, it is very possible, if not likely, that you've smeared some darker pigment into the highlighted areas. I highly encourage you to let your very last step be to restate the highlights. Again, this could mean either erasing out the highlights on white paper or going over them once again with white pencil if you're using colored or toned paper. Now at this stage of the drawing process, I will actually leave the drawing alone for a day or two and then come back to it with fresh eyes. It's amazing what new things you may see when you get a break from your drawing and then come back to it. Here is my final drawing. Hopefully, I've achieved my goal at maintaining the larger light and shadow patterns, but also rendering numerous compelling anatomical details that reinforce and not contradict the overall light and shadow patterns. Now this course includes numerous photographs of nude models that have been lit specifically for the purposes of shading. Once you've completed your first drawing, I encourage you to go through this course again and again. Each time you go through it, make sure you're drawing from a different photograph. Now it's impossible for any one course to include every possible shading condition. But in this course I've tried to give you tools and techniques that will allow you to shade the most common shading conditions that you're likely to find, as well as some uncommon ones. In addition to numerous photographs of fully nude models, this course also includes high resolution photographs of some of my drawings. My hope is that you can study these drawings to see how I've handled a wide range of different shading situations, body types, and poses. Well, as always, good luck with your project today and I hope to see some of your work in the future.