How to Shade Lightly

Pressure Control

When shading lightly, you want to grip your pencil loosely and have the hand back further on the pencil. You want to avoid gripping your pencil too tight. When shading very light areas, use a lighter value pencil such as an H pencil, which comes in a variety of values ranging from H - 9H.

Step 1:  Take a 2H or HB pencil and draw the outline above. Make sure the pencil marks are not too dark. If lines get too dark, you can use a kneaded eraser to help lighten them up more.

Step 2: Using a 2H pencil, shade the background with staying horizontally. You want to shade close together with closing any gaps in between. This will help the shading to be smoother.

The key to shading is to be consistent with your pressure. Take your time and have patience. Remember to keep the same direction when shading inside the handle.

Step 3: Using an HB pencil, shade the left side of the background to fade towards the middle of the cup. This will be the 'darkest' area in the background. Other areas to shade a bit darker are along the top, right side and bottom, but these will be just one shade darker than the lighter shading.

Step 4: Once you have shaded the mentioned areas, blend again with a tissue (over your finger).

Step 5: Use an HB or H pencil (depending on your pressure), shade the top half of the cup. Keep in mind that you want to shade vertically in keeping with the contour shape of the cup. Notice there is a slight area of reflection on the right side (from the handle) and a small area of shade on the left and bottom right. The abrupt line of shading is due to the reflection of the table bouncing back on the cup.

Step 6: Add a bit more pressure (but not too much!) around the handle. Note the areas that have a thicker and thinner shade. Shade lightly the top and bottom of the handle.

Step 7: Shade the cast shadow using light pressure. Add a light-medium shade on the bottom right side of the cup and below at the start of the cast shadow.

Step 8: Add a thin medium line to the bottom of the cup.

Step 9: Blend the cup and cast shadow using a tissue. Be careful to stay within the perimeter of the cup. You can use a clean tortillon to gently blend the handle.

Step 10: In this final step, darken the area on the top of the handle (if needed). You don't want it to be as dark as black, though.

Step 11: I had lightened and thinned out the shading area on the right side of the handle as I felt it was too dark and thick. You may or may not need to do this.

Step 12: Take a clickable eraser and fine-tune the curved highlight on the right side of the cup. Use a kneaded eraser to gently add a reflection of light to the left of the above highlight.