My Favorite Shading Exercises for Beginners

Introduction- 00:00
Exercise #1: Value/Tone Strips- 2:45
Exercise #2: Gradients- 12:37
Exercise #3: Dark to Light to Dark- 22:41
Exercise #4: Triangle Gradients- 26:57
Exercise #5: Square Gradients- 31:37
Exercise #6: Sphere on Gradient- 37:03

► More helpful drawing/sketching tutorials:
-Check out my Drawing Mini-Course for the Total Beginner here:
-Basic Drawing Supplies Pencil Grades Tips For Beginners
-Freehand Drawing Tips for Beginners
-The Keys to Being Able to Draw Anything You Want
-Freehand Drawing Tips: How to Improve Your Proportions
-How to Improve Your Circles and Ellipses
-Shading Spheres with Watercolor Tutorial

In this video, I'm sharing my favorite 6 exercises for beginners looking to improve their pencil control and their shading in general. ✏️

I've organized the exercises included here from easiest to hardest. I'd highly recommend working through them in this order, especially if you're just getting started.

It's important to note that, the fine motor skills developed through this kind of exercise will be extremely helpful whether you're into graphite drawing, colored pencils, or even watercolor pencils.

Hope you enjoy this tutorial! 💙

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► Supplies Used:


► Camera:
-Canon T6 EOS Rebel DSLR Camera

► Music:
Outlaw's Farewell (part II) by Reed Mathis
Moonrise by Reed Mathis
Fractal of Light by Chris Haugen
*Courtesy of YouTube's free music library.

#graphiteshadingtutorial #graphiteshadingtips

[ErikaLancasterArt]

Welcome back, fellow artists and art lovers! 🖌☺Hope this tutorial is helpful for those of you getting started with drawing or looking to improve your shading. If you have any questions, please leave them below and I'll do my best to get back to you. For immediate access to my real-time, fully-narrated sketching and watercolor tutorials (with downloadable outline sketches, reference photos and supply lists), classes and workshops on Art Fundamentals (covering art school basics) with assignments, feedback from me on your work, live monthly art chats/Q&A's, and much more: 🙌 Thanks so much for watching! ❤

[BankeySharma]

Big like 3 awesome sharing dear friend Erika 💗 beautiful tutorial nice exercise

[keepershoes]

Thank you. The exercises were super fun and helpful.

[FFVison]

Regarding the sphere, it makes perfect sense to think of a crescent moon shape. After all, what is a crescent moon but a sphere with a light source (the Sun) shining on it.

[JohnDisilva-eu]

I am learning from this video.. thanks for sharing in detail..

[francismarro]

Great instruction as usual Erika! I find myself practicing whenever I have a few spare moments.

[davidjhernandez]

Hi Erika, wonderful video for beginners, it helped a lot!. Just a quick question, what pencil grade or number you used in exercise #3? Thanks.

[pakyinlin]

The video is great and instructive. However I do have a question :Do I just use HB pencil throughout the shading practice, as I know there are different shading pencils, like 2B and 4B which have darker shades?

[MRGAUNTLET]

Erika Lancaster i give your video a gigantic thumbs up, this is sensationally full of exquisiteness, wonderfully fantastical and majestically delightful, everything you want to achieve in life takes huge effort and hard work, enjoy your day

[Alatriste]

Such a nice explanation and very detailed info. very useful, thank you<3

[sccrespoc]

I've been drawing for a couple of years and although I have improved my pencil control, it is still far from what you can do. I think my main problem is lack of patience.