Mastery
Retest your light and shadow separation
Whenfinished drawings keep looking evenly grey
Investigate evenly grey drawings with a baseline and a later light-dark comparison.
- Steps
- Keep a baseline drawing; note its light direction. Compare the lightest and darkest areas with the subject.
- Choose one correction: preserve the lightest paper or darken the main shadow. Apply it before texture in two later normal drawings.
- Redraw the baseline under similar light. Check the same light-dark order and boundary: clearer, unchanged or unclear. Keep or change the correction.
Start tiny
Label the lightest and darkest areas to compare.
When it slips
Changed lighting? Mark the comparison unclear and make a new baseline.
Evidence grade CPractitioner method or editorial idea
David DeRoche, Drawing is Seeing (2022), Chapter 6: Shading. Read the source ↗ — documented tonal relationships. The recurring diagnostic loop and later retest are editorial adaptations, not demonstrated learning effects.
Mastery: Inspect your work, apply a specific correction in later practice and check whether it helped.
