Shading is a way to make your drawings look round and real. When light shines on something, one side gets bright and the other side goes dark. Shading shows those light and dark parts in your drawing!
Without shading, a drawing of a ball looks like a flat circle. Add some shading, and suddenly it looks like a real ball you could pick up and roll. That is what shading can do!
To shade with a pencil, press harder for dark areas and press softer for light areas. The spot where light hits your drawing should stay very light or white. The spot far from the light should be your darkest.
One easy way to shade is called hatching — you draw lots of small lines close together. The closer the lines, the darker it looks. You can also rub your pencil marks gently with your finger to blend them into smooth, soft shadows.
Draw a circle. Imagine the light is shining from the top right corner. Now make the bottom left part of your circle darker. Leave the top right part of the circle light.
Look at what happened — your flat circle now looks like a ball! Artists use this same trick whether they are drawing apples, faces, or whole mountains.
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