Shadow & Form

An Approach to Drawing Shadows

Shadow creates form, but shadow is not part of form.

This week in our Book Study club, we have been focusing on shadows in figure drawing. If you’re new to this Newsletter, there is a paid subscription where you get access to our Book Study, as well as weekly chats, exercises and threads where you can share your work and get feedback. Consider joining the monthly or annual tier here:

In the book we’re studying, “The Natural Way to Draw”, Nicolaides says, “there is no such thing as shadow. There is only the absence of light.”

While this might be contentious to some, it’s clear he is asking us to consider shadow from a fresh perspective. And, moreover, he is reminding us to consider form over and above shadow.

This exploration has produced some wonderful drawings from the memebrs in our group, and I published a video today explaining my approach to drawing shadows that focuses on using line to build up tone, following the shape of forms faithfully. You can catch up with that video here:

🎥This Technique Dramatically Improves Shadows in Your Figure Drawings

Flat shadows in a drawing, that show no consideration for the shape the thing you are drawing, result in flat drawings. Now, in gesture drawing and quick studies, I always just use the side of a piece of charcoal and sweep a section of tone across the page to express “shadow”. Or, I’ll block in with cross hatching and quick lines. And very often those expressions are more than enough to convey the feeling of a pose or the idea you want to say in a drawing.

Every so often though, you are called to make a longer, slower and more considered drawing, where you spend time to really resolve things in your work. That’s when tackling the shadows and shadow shapes across the figure can either make or break your drawing. Too much rendering and the drawing looks over worked. Not enough subtlety in the tones and the drawing looks simplified.

This is why I avoid as much as possible, any over-emphasis on shadows, because giving all attention and all consideration to rendering tones, can sometimes detract from the physical aspect of the figure, or even the quality that you see in the gesture.

There is a ton of technical aspects relating to shadows, to light, and the way they interact across the human figure. It’s a science in and of itself. My approach in drawing however is to get get so absorbed in the process that I forget to analyze. Maybe that’s also my drawback, from a purely academic standpoint. However, from a very intuitive and expressive, viewpoint, drawing by responding - not analyzing - is a way for me to remain expressive while engaging with this very technical aspect of the pose, the shadow and light. I personally feel that remaining rooted in what you observe and being committed to expressing that in line, is always a good way to proceed if you find that the technical aspects of shadows stop you from really being creative and dynamic in your work.

To strike a right balance, to find your way through the academic aspects of shadow and light, it’s always good advice - as Nicoaides says - to focus on form.

In this video I uploaded today I attempted to share a technique of drawing shadows that is simply about focusing on form, more than on the shadow. At the core of this approach is a method that asks you to think about how you can express the shadow that you see with line, rather than with blocks of tone.

If you struggle with getting shadows on your drawing just right - if somehow the shadows always come out too dark, or look over-worked; or if shadows are just a tricky aspect for you in general, then try to approach drawing shadows with very closely observed contour lines. These contour lines are like cross hatches or parallel lines, but they are utterly conforming to the contours of the form that you’re drawing.

Let me know how you get on, or if you have any other approach to drawing shadows that you can share with us here in the comments section below.

Wishing you a wonderful week!