| Shading is an important skill for every artist to | | | | value can exist by itself. Our eye will automatically |
| develop. Every artist realizes or should realize the | | | | lighten or darken. A medium grey will look almost |
| importance shading makes in his/her drawings. | | | | white next to black and very dark next to white. |
| Without good shading techniques, drawing people | | | | When determining value, it is important to squint |
| and faces masterfully, is a moot point. Shading is | | | | or open your eyes very wide. This keeps you |
| a technique that every artist should attempt to | | | | from focusing in on a single value and look at all |
| master and practice continually. Shading requires | | | | of the value relationships together as a whole. |
| certain tools and steps to be developed in order | | | | Without doing this our eye will play a trick on us. |
| to master. | | | | For example, if we focus in on a shadow area of |
| The ability to shade is determined on how well | | | | our subject, our eye will adjust to that specific |
| you can see value relationships, along with a basic | | | | value field and give us a false reading. We will |
| understanding of how light works. Value, or how | | | | have a tendency to start averaging our values, |
| light or dark something is, is relative. | | | | making our lights to dark and our darks to light, |
| Like many things artists experience, no single | | | | failing to see the over all relationships. |