✏️ SOFT VS HARD SHADOWS
✏️ YOUR SKETCH KIT
This lesson pushes shading beyond flat dark patches. You will learn reflected light, soft and hard shadow edges, ambient fill, and how a kneaded eraser brings highlights back. Finish by shading a pear or apple with a full tonal range.
- ✏️ Graphite pencils: H for layout, HB for midtones, 2B and 4B for deep shadows
- 📄 Sketch paper: smooth surface for clean value steps
- 💡 Desk lamp: one light source on your fruit
- 🍐 Practice prop: a real pear or apple to compare values
- 🧽 Kneaded eraser: essential for pulling reflected light and highlights
Time: about 10 minutes · Never use pure black for shadows · Full value range on one fruit
PAGE 1 OF 5, SHADOWS ARE NOT PURE BLACK
BEYOND FLAT DARK
REFLECTED LIGHT ON THE SHADOW SIDE
Beginners often fill every shadow with the darkest pencil until it looks like a hole in the paper. Real objects rarely work that way. Light bounces off the table, walls, and nearby surfaces, then sneaks back into the shadow side as reflected light. That bounce is softer and lighter than the core shadow. On a round fruit, you may see a gentle glow along the bottom of the shadow side, bounced up from the table. Your confused alien spaceship with giant mismatched eyes stops looking like a flat sticker when the hull shows a faint rim of light opposite the lamp.
⚡ DID YOU KNOW?
Reflected light is one of the lightest values inside the shadow, but never as bright as the main highlight.
BOUNCE!
CORE SHADOW
🌑 Darkest area away from light.
✏️ Use 4B, not scribbled black.
✏️ Use 4B, not scribbled black.
REFLECTED
✨ Lighter band inside shadow.
🪞 Light bouncing off the table.
🪞 Light bouncing off the table.