Sketching Basics: Drawing Shapes with Light & Shadow

1. Intodaction: Surely you know that to improve your drawing skills, it is necessary to know the basics even if you're doing sketching and modern illustration. I'm Morgan, food illustrator and a graphic designer. In my new Skillshare class, I will show you why it is so important to understand the basics of working with light and shadow. All real object have a certain form, whether it is an object or even a human face. For example, you want to draw an apple, the apple is like a ball. If you don't know how to show the volume of the ball, then you will not be able to draw a realistic apple. I will give you the necessary meaning and multi-tool. It will help you make your sketches voluminous and more realistic. My main goal is that you can start practicing sketching right away and get good results without getting stuck in the endless study. I have simplified difficult terms for better understanding and application, but at the same time saving the most important. Also, I created a full class guide, which you can use as a cheat sheet anytime you need it. After this class, you will know what value is, how the relationship between light and shadow is formed on objects of different shapes. How to correctly analyze reference and of course, you will be able to show volume on real objects. Let's get started. 2. Class Project: As a class project, I suggest you sketch a realistic apple in color using the knowledge you will gain from this class. But I still advise you to draw monochrome figures with me. If you at least once form the volume on these figures on your own, it will be much easier for you in the future. You can upload only a ready sketch of an apple to the project section or all intermediate results. We'll study on a ball, cube, cylinder, a tone analysis of an apple and an apple color itself. Or just any of these stages you want to share with me and your fellow students. Of course, I will give you detailed feedback on your results. Let's dive into the world of light and shadows. 3. Value, light and shadow, form: When analyzing and studying lighting on a reference, refills divide image into two parts, light and shadow. Then we divide each of them into several more transitional zones. The first thing we start with is understanding the position of the light source. A little trick, if there is a noticeable cast shadow on the reference, then the light source will be on the opposite side. For example, a shadow on the bottom right means a light on the top left. Visually, the darkest areas are shadows because they often appear most sensitive to the eye. On the opposite side of the revealed zone of shadows, there will be a zone of light. It has more nuances. It's also important to think about the color and surface properties. The lighter and brighter the surface color itself, the more light it will reflect. Let's summarize what's encoded in the zones of light and shadow. Light zone. Highlight appears as the brightest area at the most convex point relative to the location of the light source. The more glossy the surface of the object is, the brighter the highlight. If the surface is matte, the highlight is less pronounced. Light, the path illuminated by the light source, is the face of the object. Usually, the illuminated face of an object has an angle and locations that is maximized face-to-face with the source of light. Halftones, the transition zone between light and shadow. Now to the shadow zone. Reflected light is an area on the body of an object in the shadow zone on which indirect light from other objects is reflected. Formed shadow is always on the body of the object on the opposite side from the illuminated surface and the light source. It is the darkest area on object. Formed shadow includes reflected light and the terminator. Core shadow or terminator, is the darkest area in the shadow zone and the junction with the light in this part of the shadow that shows in which part of the object the border of the shadow begins, where the rays of light lose their direct influence. Such zone appears to in object with a axis of rotation. In objects with orthogonal structure, this contrast zone is called H contrast. H contrast can be of different lighting. It appears as the junction of light and shadow, again. Lightened halftone at the border between differently illuminated plants. Cast shadow. Cast shadow falls from an object, creating a distorted shape of the same object. In other words, the cast shadow is laid by the edges of the halftone and its own shadow. Further, for better understanding, we will analyze how the volume forms on the example of geometric shapes, a cube, a bowl, and a cylinder. Most objects can be simplified to this shapes. And if you understand how to convey the volume of these shapes, then it will not be difficult to transfer this knowledge to any object you draw. For example, many fruits and vegetables have the shape of a bowl, an apple, a tomato, an orange, etc. A cube is a book, ice cube, chocolate pieces. A cylinder is a glass, a cucumber, and so on, so on. For the first part of the practice, we will need markers of gray shades from light to dark. I will use CG 0.5, CG 1, CG 3, CG 5, see 7, and CG 9. You can use whatever sheds you have, including the colors, but it should be 5, 6 shades from light to dark. Let's dive into the practice. 4. How to analyze references?: To understand how to show volume on colored object, you need to understand how to create it using monochrome shades on simple shapes. The volume of any object consists of light and shadows. If we remove all the colors from the air, you would still see the apple and recognize it as an apple. In other words, we are simply displaying the values of the apple. Value is about how light or dark an object or area is. It allows us to see the form. Our visual experience and perception of the world depend on light. Whenever we see anything, it means that what we are looking at is being illuminated by a light source. Without light, we cannot see. Highlights and shadows combine to create the illusion of a light source. Technically, without a light source, we have no illusion. As an object turns away from the light source, less light can reach it, so it gradually darkens. The object falls into the shadow where light can no longer reach it. This gradual darkening of an object turning away from light creates a range of values. We see form through these differences in values or differences in lightness and darkness. When light illuminates form, the combination of lights and shadows creates a range of values which creates an illusion of form. If you understand and correctly implements a value in your drawings, you will immediately see an improvement. Value is one of the key elements in drawing. Now, let's talk a bit about the value scale. Traditionally used a system of nine values ranging from white to black, called a value scale. The scale consists of three light values, three halftones, and three dark values. You may notice that in the marker set, there are often exactly nine shades of gray, from 0-9. But to simplify, you can use a smaller number, for example, take shades through one; 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. 5. Volume in monochrome: a cube: Let's start with the cube, outline our cube, and start with a facet. Here we don't have the task of diving into all the details of the construction in an academic drawing, whatever. We just need to understand how the volume forms. Erase pencil lines and now I outline the cube with a liner so you can see it better. Here it is approximately our cube. Now let's set where will be a light source. I will have it here on the top left. Remove the extra lines and I will show our light source in yellow. It's always necessary to understand where the light falls before starting to work with the color. We need this to understand where the shadow falls. Let's now roughly outline the cast shadow. For now, this is a very approximate shadow form because of the construction of cast shadows is a separate big topic. Now, we will not analyze it because for sketching, this is not critical. After all, if you adjust the shadow from a person or some other complex object point by point, it will be too long and complicated. In our case, there will be approximately such a distorted shape of the object. Again, remove the pencil lines. Now let's see how the light will be spread over the cube. When the light comes from the top-left at the lightest part, we'll have these in this upper facet of the cube. We take the light as gray. I have my CG1 and paint over this facet completely to give it a shade. Fill with the color according to the shape of the edge. We will have this edge in the halftone zone because the light comes from the top-left, we paint over it with CG3. Again, we apply strokes according to the shape of the object. The fill is quite dense this way and now I will add some CG5 right here at the transition between light and shadow. The resolve is a sharper transition along the edges and blue with my CG3 to make it smoother. This face is all in the shade and we can completely fill it with CG5. Try not to tear all the marker from the sheet so that the fill will be more even. Now, again, along the edge here it will be even darker. We add CG7. But don't forget to leave the reflected light zone and we soften this transition with CG5. Once again, here we have light zone. This is a halftone and this is the shadow. Let's move on to the cast shadow. I outline it with my CG3. Now we add CG5 closer to the object. Add CG7 even closer. Under the cube itself, we can add a bit of CG9, something like this, and blue it all with CG3, making our shadow more even. Here we can still soften that transition with CG3 a little more. Let's look what we have. Here is our light source. This phase will be in the light. Here will be a halftone zone. Here is a form shadow, reflected light zone, and a cast shadow. Our cube is ready. Let's move on to the next object. 6. Volume in monochrome: a sphere: Now let's see how the light and shadow are spread across the ball. We outline the ball itself. The ball is a body of rotation, but now their construction details again, are not important to us. Our goal is to understand how the volume of the ball is formed. Here is our ball. Again, I set the light source and place it on the top left similar to what we did with the cube. I'll show it in yellow again. Now, I will outline the ball with a liner so you can see it better. Here it is. Roughly outline the falling shadow. The light is on the top left, so the shadow will be on the bottom right. I remove the pencil lines. Just leave a shadow a bit so that we can see where it is and remove the rest. Now let's form the volume on the ball. Let me start by outlining the highlight with my CG1. For now, we simply leave this place unpainted. The highlight is the brightest place on the ball. It is noticeable on glossy figures and can be blurry and not very apparent on mod objects. Now is the same CG1, we begin to form a zone of light applying strokes in the shape of a ball. Next with CG3, I show the halftone zone. Again, we apply strokes according to the shape of an object. Something like that. Now mix a bit with CG1. I want to mix the highlight with a blender a bit so it is not so bright. Here it is. In general, we can paint with CG3 over our entire ball. Now we'll start to form the shadow area. For this, I will really use my CG5. Don't forget to leave a place for the reflected light below. It will be lighter than the shadow. Now bluer a bit we CG3 to make their transition smoother. Once again, I go with CG3 on the reflected light zone. Imagine that our ball lies on a white surface, and therefore our reflected light zone is light. For example, if the ball lay in a red surface, the reflected zone would behave a reddish tint. Here we will have a line of refraction of the light and shadow, the darkest place on the ball. Showing in to a CG7 and mix with CG5. I will darken the reflex a little more and soften that transition. Now a blue transition with my CG1 a little more in the light zone. Here, I still mix a bit with the blender. While the ball is drying, let's move on to the cast shadow. We outline the cast shadow with CG3. Cast shadow the closer to the object, the darker it is. Therefore, closer to the ball, I add my CG5. In the place where the ball touches the surface, I add CG7, just a bit, and blend it all with CG3. We can soften the shadow a little more using our CG1 at the edges. Let's look what we have. Here is our light source. Here's the highlight. Here is a zone of light, a halftone zone. Here will be a form shadow, reflected light, and of course the cast shadow. Well, we understood how light is spread over the surface of the ball and now we can move to the cylinder. 7. Volume in monochrome: a cylinder: Now let's look at how the volume forms on another geometric shape on a cylinder. We begin to outline the cylinder from the ellipse, then lower the vertical axis of the cylinder down from it. Draw the lower ellipse. This ellipse in our case, is more open than upper one, because it is more distant from the horizontal line. Remove the top layer of the pencil and now outline the cylinder with a liner. Again, we're not dealing with all the inter-cases self-construction. We are not diving into academic drawing. Our main goal now is to understand how the volume forms on various figures. Make sure that the edges of the ellipse are rounded. The light source is still on the top-left, and as I did it before, I mark it with yellow. Now I want to outline the cast shadow. Again it is a very approximate drawing because the construction of cast shadows is a separate huge topic, as I've told you before. Something like that. Remove pencil lines, and let's look how the light and shadow will be spread here. The light falls from the top-left and it means that this part will be mostly in light and I just give it a little shade with my CG1. Here it will be a little darker, and we can show this slide transition with CG2 darken a bit and blue away CG1 to make this transition smoother. Now with the same CG1, we begin to form the volume. Let's show highlight. It will be here, next, it will be the light zone. Next, with CG3, we show a halftone zone and make a dense feel over the entire shape, including the reflected light zone. Strokes as always, I apply it in the form because with them they also form the volume. Now mix colors using our CG1. Now with CG5 add a shadow zone, and again, don't forget to leave a room for reflected light on the edge. Soften the transition a little more with CG3. With the help of CG7, we show the darkest part of the cylinder and blend it a bit with CG5. Softens the transitions a little more with our CG3. Also, we can make our highlights not so noticeable and blow it a little with a blender. The brightness of the highlight depends on the material from which the cylinder is made. We can light on the reflected light zone a little more. Something like that. Let's move to the cast shadow. I showed with CG3. As we can see, the shadow expands a little upward. Now I add see closer to the cylinder itself. Even closer I add my CG7. In the place where the cylinder touches the surface, we can even add CG9, and blend it all with CG3. The cast shadow is darker than the form shadow because it absorbs many shadow nuances. The marks will dry and the color will not be so dark, and all transition will be visible. Let's look what we have here is a light source, here is a highlight zone, here is a light, here are our light zones. Here is a halftone, here is a form shadow, reflected light zone, and the cast shadow. 8. Practice 1 : Apple value study: Well, it's time for practice in this path to consolidate and practice the knowledge we gained, we will draw an apple using only gray shades. Our main goal here will be to show the volume. Let's get started. I chose this reference let's take a closer look at it. As I said, first of all, we need to understand where is the zone of light and where is the shadow. By the location of the fallen shadow, now we can suppose that light falls on that apple almost from above. This part of apple is the most eliminated and here's an apparent highlight. There will be a health done zone. Here we see a core shadow and a form shadow. Also on an apple we can see a rather noticeable reflected light area from the surface because we have an apple on a white background. The cast shadow is almost under the apple, it's not very big. Now we will try to show all of these with the help of only gray shades. To begin with, we outline the shape of our apple. Apple is the same ball but not perfectly round. In the previous part, we looked at how to show the volume of a ball, and now we will try to apply our knowledge to a real object. Here is our apple, now let's outline the stalk. It can be simplified to a cylinder form. Here it is. We outline the cast shadow. Now with a soft eraser, I remove the top layer of the pencil so that it doesn't interfere with our work with color. I will outline an apple with a liner. Again, an apple cannot be a perfect bowl because and it wouldn't lie on the surface but would roll. We start working with gray shades. I take my lightest marker, CG1, and outline the highlight. There will be also very bright place, and piece by piece, I move on to the formation of light zone. We apply strokes in the shape of an apple. This way we'll also form the volume. I want to blur the highlighted bit with the blender to make it a little subtler. I'll take my CG2 and edit in darker places. But you can use here CG3, I took CG2 just for a bit smoother transition. My CG2 is running out, so I'll switch to CG3 and continue with it. We continue work with halftones still in this area. In general, we can paint all the rest of apple with our CG3. With CG1, I will blend this transition a little bit. Working with such strokes we can show the texture of the apple. I think later we will addition the highlights of reflect zone with a white pencil because now it's too dark. While the marker is not completely dry, with the help of my CG5 I begin to form shadow zones. We look where the shadow zones are on the reference and approximately repeat. Similar way again, it's such strokes to show the texture better. Now we mix colors together with CG3 so the transition between the halftones will be smoother. Here we already see that the volume of the apple is beginning to appear. We show the shape of an apple not only by the relationship of light and shadow, but also by the strokes with which we work. Pay attention to it. Now at CG1 a little more to get a smoother gradient. Again I work with such strokes. This way we continue to create the shape and the volume of our apple. Now in the darkest places, I want to add some CG7. It will be the core shadow zone and now I mix colors with my CG5 and again add some strokes. By saying that I want to work on the texture of the apple with my CG5 a little more. The main thing here is to stop on time because this can continue indefinitely, but I will still work a little on the shape of the apple. Now I work a little more on the highlights with a blender to mix all these shapes together. Now let's bend the stock with CG3. The top part on the stock is in the light, so we can cover it with CG1 or if you have CG0.5 it will be even better. Here I have my CG0.5 in a format without a brush and also we can add it here in light areas, but it is just an option. Now with CG5, I darken the stalk and shadow areas and then the CG3 mix colors a little bit. Now it's time to work with a cast shadow. We outline its shape with CG3 and we can bloom the borders of the shadow a little bit using CG1 so that there is a smoother transition. Closer to the object, we begin to darken. We add CG5 and now we said the dark is CG7, I outlined the base of the shadow right here under the apple and using my CG3 mix it all together. Remember that the cast shadow is darker to the object and lighter from it and also we can [inaudible] the edges with a blender. Now let's use a white pencil to show the reflected light. We highlight the reflected light zones because the zones are very clearly visible on our reference. Note that we'll also put the stroke in the form. I blew a pencil a bit with my finger. You can do it with a soft eraser or with a piece of paper, whatever you like. As an option here, we can use an even softer pastel pencil. Now with a white gel pen, we can slightly correct the places where the market has blown beyond the outline and with the same white gel pen, we can add these spots which are seen here in the reference. This will add even more texture to our apple. Of course, we will not leave this spot so bright. I take my CG1 and color them on top, [inaudible] them that way. I'm going to darker the [inaudible] area a bit more of a CG3 because the marker gets lighter as it dries. Therefore sometimes after drying you want to add more saturation to the shadow nuances, and it's absolutely okay, so we can stop here I think. Well, we showed the volume on the complex shape of real object, not just on a ball. Let's see our apple has a highlight, it's the light zone. It's a halftone zone, has a core shadow, form shadow, reflected light zones on the sides of apple, and a cast shadow. Now, let's try to complicate our task a little and practice with color. See you in the next part. 9. Practice 2: Working with color: Now we're using the example of the same apple. I suggest you try to convey the shape and volume with color. For the apple, I chose this palette, several colors from light pink, two dark red, yellow, purple, two browns, and gray, which we have already used before. I will be using a combination of touch and [inaudible] markers. Shades can be taken a little less or a little more, for example, here you can use either R3 or R5, because my R3 has dried up and I will replace it with R5. You can pick up any similar colors from those shades that you already have. Or if you are drawing from your own reference, choose colors based on your reference. You can find these color palette in the attached files. Let's take a closer look at our reference again. As we have already found it out early, outlet false almost from above. Here is a highlight. Light, halftone, core shadow, and reflected light from a light background is clearly visible here and of course the cast shadow. So we start drawing. Again, we outline an apple, just like we did in the previous section. Then pull the ball [inaudible] of an irregular shape. We draw an approximate shape, but we try to repeat the shape of an apple from the reference. Notice that at the bottom, apple is not perfectly round. It's basically slightly fled. If the apple were perfectly round, then it would roll off the surface. Outline a cast shadow. Here it is, and now remove the top layer of the pencil with a soft eraser. I will outline the apple with a liner. Here it is. Now we're ready to start working with color. I take my lightest pink R136 and mark bright places with it. Not forget to leave a place for highlight. For now we're just making the first colored layer as if we're making a colored underlay. Then we can paint over almost entire upper part of the apple with this shade. Now at a yellow tint, my is Y260, where we have yellowish spots on the apple. I take a darker pink. My is RV270, and darker the apple a little bit. Again, it's important to apply strokes and shapes because again, resembles a form the volume of our apple. In this shade, we can color the entire bottom of the apple. We just keep walking with color spots until the apple looks strange, but later the volume will appear. Now mixing a little with my R136. With the blender, I've removed the highlighted areas so that it becomes more matte. While the blender is not dry, we can add R136 to the highlights so that it has a pinkish tint, and we can add purple RV160 to the sides of an apple. I even want to add a cooler purple P146 here, because in the reference it is very noticeable tint. Now I take a warm red R14, add then just a little bit of it on the top of an apple. I think we can add R11 here and work with it. You can not add R14 at all. It just gives a slightly warmer nuance. Now with R11, I feel all the half-tone done shadow zones, which are on the apple. With my pink RV270, I make the shades while the marker is still wet. We're still making the first colored layer an underlay. Then on this background, we'll already create volume. Again, don't forget to apply strokes in the shape of an apple. When working with markers, often red shades are printed on paper like this. So you have to be careful, not like me. Of course, later we will correct the reason why gel pen, but it is better to pay attention to it in advance. Add again, my purple shade P146. Fill in the reflected light zones. Now I take R3 and already begin to form the shadow parts. My marker is almost dry, so I will replace it with R5. It's a similar shade, but a little more pinkish and a little lighter. Then we'll go again over the entire shadow zone, working with strokes. I take my R2 and now I will show the shadow itself. It's already most iterated wine shade. Do you see that the apple is already getting volume? We work with strokes because we also show the texture of the apple with them. Now, this R5 or R3 blurs a transition between shades. Now I take my pink RV270, and Here I also blend it in highlighted area. Then do it with the lightest R136 and mix it all with the blender. When marker is dry, the highlight will become lighter. Also, we can walk a little with a blender on top of the apple to lighten these areas a little more. We don't have the goal of 100% repeating the shades on the reference. We work with the colors that we have and the main thing is to show the volume and shape of the apple. Now I take my darkest red R1 and deepen the shadow even more in the darkest places. This is a very deep shadow. And with R2 blue retreat. Now I add R5 to make the transition smoother. Also add some small details like stripes and strokes, these adds volume and texture to our apple. Now I blue with my light pink RV270. The lightest pink R136 and lighten the color transitions a little more. From time to time, we clean the tip of the marker on paper when we work in light on dark because it gets dirty. Now I'm going to add some more yellow Y260 just to give a slightly warmer undertone. I take my purple P146 and once again go through the bottom of the apple and the reflected light zones. We will highlight the reflected light zones later with a white pencil because now they're not as apparent as they should be. We can add a little purple even here on the top. Now, I add texture to the apple using R2, applying all the strokes in the form. Again, some way you can add dots which will also given an additional texture. Think now I'll go with a light pink RV270 on the bottom of our apple. With the lightest pink R136, I mix the highlights zone again. Now once again I go through it with blender. I take my R5 and bloom the shadow area a little bit. When working with details, it's important to stop in time because it's really endless process. Let's move to this stark. For the bottom part, I take BR95 and paint it. I leave the unpainted part on top. At BR99 in dark places. On the top, I mix a shade a little with a blender, and slightly correct the shape with BR95. Now I want to add a little more purple shade, P146. Again, to the reflected light zones. Forget about it. [LAUGHTER] Let's move on to the cast shadow. With the help of CG1, I outline the main shape of the shadow. At my CG3 close to the apple and even closer, I add CG5. On this apple itself, I add CG7. Note that the reddish hue of the apple is reflected in the shadow. To show this, we add R5 to the shadow, and mix it all with CG3. Also, we can blur the contour of the shadow with CG1 a little more, and even soft on the edges with a blender. Now, just as we did in previous part, we add some spots to the apple with a white gel pen, which gives it an additional texture. Now we will tint all these spots on top with R5 so that the doughnut stand out like that. In the light areas, we cover them with our light just the pink shade, R136. We can brighten a little more shear too. The marker will dry and we will highlight the reflected light areas with a white pencil even more. For now while marker is drying, we can fill the light in the highlight a little, and the pencil in the highlights to get the effect as it's in the reference. I blur the pencil directly with my finger. As I said before, these can be done with a soft eraser or a piece of paper. We begin to highlight the reflected light zones with our white pencil. Well, our apple is ready. We managed to show its volume. Let's see. Here are highlight zone and the light zone, a half-time zone, the core shadow, and a form shadow, and the reflected light zone. Here is a cast shadow. Reflected light could be shown even more strongly with white pencil. Now you understand how to form a volume in color on a real object. 10. Final Thoughts: Congratulations, you have reached the end and dealt with an important part of drawing, how to form volume on objects using light and shadow. I hope you have learned something new and now you will apply the knowledge gained in this class in creating your sketches. Keep practicing, draw different objects and you will see how your skill improves every day. In the attachment section, I have prepared references of various objects on which you can practice and a full class guide with main points and definitions. If you liked my class, I invite you to leave a review. It will be useful both for me as a teacher and for other students who chose which class to take. If you have questions or want to share something, you can do it in the discussion section. Thank you for your attention and see you next time.