How to Draw Cool Stuff: Shading Techniques for Teachers and Students

by Catherine V. Holmes

Shading is one of the easiest ways of adding depth, contrast, character, and movement to your drawings. By controlling pencil pressure and stroke, understanding light and having knowledge of blending techniques, an artist can enhance their work and offer the “wow” factor needed to produce realistic artworks. Drawing Dimension - A Shading Guide for Teachers and Students offers a series of shading tutorials that are easy to understand and simple to follow. It goes beyond the standard "step by step" instruction to offer readers an in-depth look at a variety of shading techniques and their applications.

Inside this book is a series of lessons designed to teach you how to add dimension to your own drawings, how to analyze real life objects and shade, create highlights, blend tones, and produce realistic drawings with ease. We will explore hatching, cross hatching, and stippling techniques and learn how to use contrast to set a mood and create a focal point. At last - we’ll put all of these skills to the test and work together to produce a beautiful piece of art.

Drawing Dimension - A Shading Guide for Teachers and Students includes many resources to help you along the way through examples, tips on what you should aim for, and pitfalls to avoid. Each lesson is tailored to help you refine your shading techniques so you can add more depth and realism to your work. The book is perfectly suitable for beginners and moderates of all ages, students and teachers, professionals and novices; anyone can learn how to shade like a pro!

Genres: Art, Drawing, Nonfiction, Reference, Childrens, Crafts, How To

208 pages, Paperback

Published April 22, 2025

Reviews

[Arlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worthwhile investment

I found this book highly instructive to give me the absolute foundation to begin my learning better techniques for shading rather than just guessing. The author removed the angst of drawing from the equation allowing for more intense work and understanding of shading on its own. I found this book invaluable so I bought it.

[Miriam Jacobs · Rating 3 out of 5]

The merits of this book are the low expectations it sets and its realistic view of time. Art-making that requires thought and application can be time-eating but it is time-enriching, too. Holmes assumes that the reader knows nothing and has no talent. She says, in fact, that illustration is a learned skill. Low expectations are right, however, in the sense that the goal is the practice, as an act, rather than earth-turning results. Readers are free to think as they please about that.

[Pam Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good art lessons.

Each lesson helped with learning how to shave and bring out the image. Good book. The whole series is good art lessons.

[Antigone Walsh · Rating 2 out of 5]

the information is decent but the presentation is dry and dull. The writing style is not conducive to easy learning.

[Carson Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Perhaps one star is a little harsh, however I had high expectations for this book of which I was rudely disabused. I own several books geared towards beginners that reference shading here and there, and I expected this to be a book-length treatment of the critical sub-topic of shading. It was not. I expected to learn advanced and interesting shading techniques. I did not.

This book was a weird mix of far too basic and extremely complicated with no explanation. The horribly explained contouring section comes to mind. Additionally, it was text heavy with very few exercises or unique examples. Most of the content of the book is shown on the front cover. I don't necessarily mind a text heavy art book so long as the text is insightful and supports sufficient examples. 'Human Anatomy for Artists' by Eliot Goldfinger is a good example -- volumes of useful text explanation coupled with hundreds of brilliant illustrations. Unfortunately this book was a major disappointment.

As another reviewer mentioned, significant space was dedicated to milquetoast QA between the author and students that was usually unhelpful and often contained useless, self-congratulatory praise for the instructor's lesson. It seemed like a poor attempt at copying the style of Mark Kistler in his superior 'You Can Draw in 30 Days'.

I read this book in Kindle Format, however my review is of the contents of the book. I did not remove any stars for how pathetically the Kindle version was rendered. If for some reason you still wish to buy this book after reading my review, I would recommend purchasing a physical copy.

[Mr Stephen Rider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drawing Dimensions - Shading Techniques:- A good series of lessons to learn about principles of shading and the techniques used to practice them.

The only downside to this book is a few grammatical errors in the text. As common understanding can easily unpick these, this is a minor issue.
There is a lot of knowledge and experience in these chapters which, if treated as lessons and projects to be practiced, will deliver an in depth understanding of how to use a variety of shading techniques to improve your artwork and to create a more engaging style of work that is consistent in the quality you can achieve as you develop your own style. I found this really useful to me and would recommend this to anyone seeking to improve their drawing and shading skills.

[Michaell Cavllaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

ALMOST EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SHADING TECHNIQUES

I really learned a lot about the different methods used for making art look realalistic through the use of different techniques used for filling in light and dark areas after drawing a piece of art. This book will also serve as a good reference when needing any questions answered regarding what and when to used different techniques used for shading.

[lisa judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wordy but informative.

Much of the book gives info in a question/answer format.It makes the information unnecessarily wordy and difficult to find.More drawing examples would've helped too.But for basic shading instruction , it gets the information across.

[Xavier · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent overview of shading techniques for beginners. I was hoping it would go more into the techniques specifically suited for charcoal. The section on contours and drawing a wire frame of an object before you shade it was most helpful for me

[Frank Tarzanin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction into shading. perfect for someone like me!

I’m just starting to learn how to draw. This book was very helpful. I strongly suggest other beginners give it a close look.

[Dennis Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good, nice detail. A good book to learn the process with

[Nancy Cupp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun!

A great guide to drawing. Even with no prior experience, I was drawing like an expert. Easy to follow and understand.

[Ranj · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not written well

Very poor in getting the message across better books available. Do not waste your time on this its not worth it .

[Maria Crean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic!

I’m so glad to have discovered this author. These books are really useful in planning my yearly art teaching. I’m excited to share these skills with the kids.

[Tawanda Thompson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not helpful

Too many words, barely any art at all. I don’t know how anyone can expect to get any help from this.

[sami nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

drawing dimension

I love this book. I think I will go back read until I have a all the lessons in my head without looking at. It help me a lot

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed examples and explanations

The best shading book ever read, and I have read over a dozen.
Liked it so much I am going to buy the actual book!

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book thoroughly but felt that it was simpler than what I needed. Looking through the exercises was interesting though.