Shading Basic Shapes into Forms.Originally by Italian art teacher and artist Miriam Paternoster

1. View the video on turning shapes into form. Replay as watch as many times as needed. Practice on scrap paper using pencil. The video will demonstrate and explain the steps to shading correctly. Don’t panic. Take your time and practice your skills before you start on your final art project. Control+click on the colored link below to study shading shapes into forms video.

https://youtu.be/vMr6eimcolc

This picture of an example of light source and shadow placement.

Here are the lines. The shapes are simplified. See the center horizontal line? This represents the line separating foreground and background. This will be important after you practice shading.

This is a close up view of shading techniques: different pressure of the pencil results in darkest to lightest value.

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Practice shade with different types of line.

How can you shade different forms? Something with sharp edges and flat surfaces, like a cube, will have dark, or hard, shadows at the edges. The darkness of the shadow on the faces will not change much. Something with a curved surface, like a ball, will have a softer, more gradual shadow.To practice shading on different forms we use the worksheets you can find here below. You can print out several forms to practice. You can the draw the shapes with the help of the video. Don’t worry if you don’t have a printer.

Completed example above.

Directions/instructions

1. After you practice shading with the video free hand draw or use the pdf work sheets provided and shade the forms correctly. Pay attention to the light souce. It should be the same for all the shapes/forms.

2. Cut out the shaded forms.

3. On a drawing paper draw a line at approximately halfway through the paper horizontally. That line separates the foreground from the background. Use marker or colored pencil and color

the background with free forms in color. Think “Zentangle”designs and repeating line and shape patterns.

4. When you finish decorating the background, glue or tape the previously cut forms by arranging them in a manner consistent with the light source and taking care of

the positions of the forms on the foreground surface (front/back – top/bottom).

5. To make our design more realistic, we added the cast shadows. (Remember the video examples.)

Examples