The Pencil Grading Scale Explained 2025: A Comprehensive Guide to Graphite Drawing Pencils – Updated

The Pencil Grading Scale Explained 2021_ Absolutely Everything About Graphite Drawing Pencils

Understanding Your Materials

Understanding is a beautiful, and usually beneficial thing. On our journey for art knowledge, and as we study and practice the Art Fundamentals, we should make a point of understanding the materials we use. That is the goal of this article about the pencil grading scale. Even a basic grasp of the many factors that determine the quality and grade of our materials—such as graphite pencils and charcoal—will improve our skill in using them.

A basic knowledge of your materials’ origin, history, composition, grades, characteristics, and form varieties will improve your drawings and inspire a deeper appreciation and understanding for your art craft. Understanding which grades of graphite pencil to choose as we create a still life or a portrait allows us to make drawings with confidence and access the full range of values needed for our projects.

Frequently Asked Questions About Graphite Pencils

Some of the most frequently asked questions about graphite pencils are related to graphite itself (what is it, anyway?), the pencil grading scale, what the numbers and letters on pencils mean, how to sharpen pencils, when and where the pencil was invented, how pencils are made, why graphite sticks are called “lead”, and the safety of using graphite (can one get lead poisoning from pencil lead?).

I want to give you a heads up here that this is a more technical subject. I’ve tried to keep it succinct, clear, and interesting without adding too much fluff or going into information overload, but facts based in science don’t lend themselves to word artistry or prose so hang in there with me, ok? Besides, it’s the information we’re after so our improved understanding can begin to shine through our art.

So, let’s dig into the science, history, life, making, and safety of pencils so we can answer as many of those questions as possible.

The Science—What is graphite?

Graphite is a naturally occurring form of crystalline carbon, and the most stable form of carbon. Graphite is a mineral, and its extreme properties (extremely soft, extremely heat resistant, etc.) give it a wide range of uses in metallurgy and manufacturing. It is highly conductive for heat and electricity, and flexible but not elastic, which make it useful in electronic products like batteries. Graphite is primarily used in pencils and lubricants.

Graphite is composed of flat sheets of carbon atoms stacked on top of one another, which slide apart easily because the bonds between them are weak. This means natural graphite has incredibly low hardness, so when we drag our graphite pencil across paper those flat sheets of carbon are left behind and create a mark.

A Mark Maker: The History of Graphite

In a place called Borrowdale, near Keswick in the Lake District of England, a large deposit of graphite was discovered by locals after it was revealed by a storm in the 16th century. Due in part to its resemblance to lead in color and appearance—and the infant state of relevant sciences like Chemistry and metallurgy at the time—the substance we know to be graphite was at that time named plumbago (Latin for ‘lead ore’) because it was believed to be a form of black lead rather than carbon.

For many years, the graphite deposit in Borrowdale was the only large source of graphite, which gave England a monopoly on graphite sticks. Trade embargos during the 18th century Napoleonic Wars forced the French Republic to come up with their own version of the graphite sticks that did not rely on imports.  French army officer, painter, chemist, and balloonist Nicholas Jacques Conté had the idea of mixing powdered graphite with clay and water, and then firing the mixture in a kiln.

Conté’s innovation ended England’s monopoly on pencil production, and he continued to develop his manufacturing process by varying the quantities of clay and graphite to change the hardness of the graphite core. Conté’s experimentation and refinement of his process lead to the range of graded pencils we enjoy today, which use the alphanumeric grading scale we’ve become familiar with.

Graphite Pencil Grading Scale Explained

I have never been a fan of standardized testing, but I liked those spiffy #2 pencils. You know you have a maker’s heart when freshly sharpened pencils make you smile, but I digress. When we were filling in our answer bubbles on those tests, we were unwittingly being introduced to the middle of the graphite pencil grading scale.

The #2 pencil is part of the American system for grading “lead” hardness, and it corresponds to the HB pencil on the European grading system. HB is the middle grade pencil, meaning that it contains equal parts graphite and clay for a balance of softness and harness.

The Alphanumeric Scale

Now let’s talk letters and numbers so we can understand this alphanumeric system. The letters used are “H”, “F”, and “B”.

“H” stands for hard; “F” stands for fine, because it can be sharpened to a fine point; and “B” stands for Black.

Higher numbers in front of the “H” mean a harder pencil, while a higher number in front of the “B” means a softer pencil. The harder the graphite core of the pencil, the lighter the mark it makes, and the softer the core, the darker the mark.

Together the numbers and letters create the alphanumeric system used to describe the pencil’s hardness or softness, also called a grading system. This system refers to the ratio of binder to graphite present in the mixture of the pencil’s graphite core, commonly called “lead” (a persistent misnomer, as there is no lead in graphite pencils). The variety of ratios for this mixture is what Nicholas Jacques Conté innovated, and it is what gives us the 24 graphite pencil grades—and full value range—we enjoy today.

The harder the pencil (the “H” end of the scale), the more clay is present in the mixture recipe. Graphite, not clay, is the mark maker of this mixture, so less graphite means less mark making material is present. Marks by pencils from the “H” side of the scale will stay on the lighter end of the value scale.

The opposite is true for the “B” side of the grading scale. The more graphite is present in the mixture, the softer the graphite core will be. More graphite means more mark making material is present in the pencil, keeping marks from “B” pencils on the darker end of the value scale.

Graphite Pencil Grading Scale

How the mixture of graphite powder and clay powder are formulated determines a pencil’s “lead” grade. Below are the charts for both the European and American hardness grading systems.

European Grading System (alphanumeric):

Harder Graphite Core = Lighter Marks

10H ◀ 9H ◀ 8H ◀ 7H ◀ 6H ◀ 5H ◀ 4H ◀ 3H ◀ 2H ◀ H ◀ F

Middle Grade = Balanced

F ◀ HB ► B

Softer Graphite Core = Darker Marks

B ► 2B ►3B ►4B ► 6B ► 7B ► 8B ► 9B ► 10B ► 11B ► 12B

American Grading System (with corresponding equivalents to European System for clarity):

#1 – B

#2 – HB

#2 ½ — F

#3 – H

#4 – 2H

The American grading system is much more abbreviated and appears to have been conceived primarily for pencils used for general writing and drafting purposes. The more expansive, full range of values of the European grading system is preferred and used by artists.

Binders

As you begin learning about artist materials, you’ll hear the term “binder” mentioned, especially when discussing paints. Binders, or binding agents, are substances or materials used to hold or bring together other materials so a cohesive whole can be formed to create the tools and surfaces we use. Binders are part of the mixture (or recipe) for creating art materials, such as graphite and charcoal “leads” and sticks, pastels, paints, etc.

Binders are often liquid, powder, or dough-like substances that bind other materials together through mixing and then hardening via a chemical or physical process. In the case of artists’ materials, binders are used to hold together pigments and other materials—like graphite powder—used to create the tools and supplies we need for our art-making.

Binding agents include materials like wax, linseed oil, natural gums, proteins (egg white or casein), and clay—which is the binding agent for graphite “leads” and is usually a mixture of calcium bentonite and kaolin.

When the world was younger, materials like egg, wax, honey, lime, casein, linseed oil, or bitumen were mixed with pigment by artists to form paints. From the Middle Ages through the early 16th century, egg-based tempera was a popular binder in Europe. Oil and acrylic polymer have been the binders of choice for paint for quite some time, with oil beginning in 15th century Belgium and acrylics getting their start in 1953 (aww, like a baby paint compared to oils!).

A Pencil’s Life: Making Marks and Keeping Its Edge

The grade of pencil leads affects not only our choices about their use in our work, but also how frequently they must be sharpened, their smudge resistance, strength, smoothness, and pigmentation. Harder pencils retain a point longer and require less sharpening, while softer pencils lose their point faster and require more frequent sharpening. So, if you have a drawing with a lot of dark and velvety blacks, you are likely to run through your softer leads much more quickly.

On the flip side, while softer leads do require more frequent sharpening, they also offer a softer and smoother application on your surface. Comparatively, harder pencils can feel a bit rougher and scratchy, but they’re helpful when you need lighter values.

Drawing Further: Journey to Modern-Day Pencils

There is a bit more history involved to bridge the timeline between the Conté process and the pencils we use today. When it comes to whose idea it was to place the graphite core between to half-cylinders of wood, I have found competing information. Some sources say Conté had the idea, while others say the addition of a wooden casing was first conceived by an Italian couple by the names of Lyndiana and Simonio Bernacotti.

If it was indeed the Bernacottis, that would mean many of those British sourced graphite sticks were finding their way into rudimentary wooden casings as early as the 1560s. Conté, on the other hand, received a patent for his invention in 1795 and formed La Société Conté to produce his pencils. That is a time gap of over 200 years, but I imagine the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Regardless, the pencil manufacturing process has evolved over time to use the wooden casings we’re familiar with and to include the range of 24 leads so helpful to our art.

How Pencils Are Made

It is during the early stages of the manufacturing process that a pencil’s degree of hardness is determined. The first stage in making graphite pencils is to create a mixture of graphite powder, clay, and water. The variation in the degree of hardness (the graphite to clay ratio) is what gives us so many grades of graphite pencils, most commonly ranging from 9H to 9B in a set.

As I mentioned earlier, softer and darker graphite pencils are created when the mixture contains increasing amounts of graphite; hard grades are created when the proportion of clay is higher than that of the graphite powder.

Making the “Leads”

Once the desired mixture is created it is then pressed through a machine to create the cylindrical core shape (“lead”) and cut to a consistent length before being set to dry. Once dry, the leads go through a firing process and then on to a wax bath. Before the pencils are complete, the wood that will create the casings must go through its own process to be ready to hold the leads.

Making the Wooden Casings

To become the casing for graphite “leads”, pre-cut wooden slats have grooves machine milled into them. Glue is applied in the grooves, the leads are then inserted into the grooves, and a second milled slat with glue is applied on top to close the “slat sandwich”. These “slat sandwiches” are then placed into a large drying wheel before being sent through another machine to mill (cut) the individual pencils from the sandwiches.

The pencil cylinders are available in multiple shapes, such as hexagonal, circular, and rounded triangles. The hexagonal shape is the most common casing shape and keeps pencils from rolling off our desks.

The next step is to paint and stamp the pencils. Paint is mixed and each pencil receives a coat of it through a lacquering head machine before being stamped, dipped, and finally set to dry in a drying room. The finishing process for pencils involves a series of quality tests, including withstanding pressure, sharpening, and visual inspection before packaging.

The pencil making process I have been describing here refers to artists’ drawing pencils. The process is largely the same for standard writing pencils, like the #2 HB pencil, but there are a few differences. Primarily those differences involve the additional step of attaching a ferrule and eraser to one end of the pencils through a rubber tip assembly machine.

Here are a couple from FaberCastell USA, Insider, and NPR’s Skunk Bear of videos that illustrate the pencil making process:

Some Fun Bits About Pencils

It is important to understand our materials, but there’s no reason we can’t make it fun, right? Here are some fun tidbits I found about pencils, their history, and people who have used them:

The average pencil can draw a line 35 miles long, write about 45,000 words, and be sharpened 17 times.

Graphite’s ability to leave marks on paper and other objects is what earned it its name, which was given by German mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789.

Graphite comes from the Ancient Greek γράφειν (“graphein”), meaning to write or to draw.

Breadcrumbs were used to erase mistakes before erasers were invented.

The average size Cedar tree can be used to make about 300,00 pencils.

Pencils have been to space! They can write in zero gravity and have been used on space missions by astronauts.

Pencils can write underwater! (I’m skeptical, but it sounds cool)

Henry David Thoreau used to design pencils at his father’s pencil factory.

Thomas Edison liked to use specially made pencils that were shorter and thicker, 3 inches instead of the standard 7.5 inch size.

Hymen Lipman was the first person to attach an eraser to the end of a pencil on March 30th, 1858. Bye-bye breadcrumbs!

The darkest grade of artist’s graphite pencil is 12B, while the lightest is 10H.

Ernest Hemingway recommended writing fiction with a pencil because it “gives you one-third more chance to improve it [your writing].”

John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway both wrote their novels in pencil first.

The Best Lead Grade: Choosing Graphite Pencil Grades for Drawing

Now that we’ve familiarized ourselves with some of the science, history, life and making of graphite pencils, it’s easier to understand how and why pencil marks behave as they do on paper.

“H” pencils are quite smudge-resistant because they contain more binder than graphite powder. This means they give cleaner lines and makes them helpful for lighter toned work such as technical drawings, outlines, light sketching, and under-drawings in preparation for painting. One tradeoff is their increased scratchiness the further up the H scale you go, but this can be remedied by pairing them with middle grade (F and HB) and B pencils.

“B” pencils are amazingly smooth to draw and write with. Their higher graphite to clay mixture means they smudge easily, but their marks are generally just as easily erased. Their softer nature offers artists the ability to make more expressive and brush-like marks, especially from the higher end of the B scale.

This knowledge and understanding helps us make decisions about which grades of graphite pencils to choose for our drawings.

If the goal for a drawing is to illustrate a frozen tundra in the arctic on a sunny day, the soft and dark leads won’t play much of a role in that project because the scene calls for light tones—and light tones are achieved with hard and middle grade pencils, not soft ones. Of course, the opposite is true for a scene with a clandestine meeting—the cover of darkness is best drawn with soft, B graded pencils.

I recommend having a set of 24 graphite pencils so you have the full value range available to you. It’s best to choose tools that serve the goals and stories of your art, rather than trying to make the story fit the supplies. Here are a couple of examples from my portfolio to give you an idea of what you can do with a full set of graphite pencils (or “leads” and a lead holder), tons of practice, and a healthy dose of patience.

Beyond the needs of your project, the other considerations primarily revolve around your own preferences, workflow, and budget. In my Drawing Tools & Materials for Beginners post, I discuss my recommendations for the supplies beginning artists need to practice the fundamentals of art. Most, if not all, of the supplies you’ll need to get started can be found easily at craft stores like Michael’s. Still, at the start, a lot of practice sketches and finished drawings can be accomplished with a simple sketchbook, a pad of quality drawing paper, and a full set of drawing pencils.

Again, having tools that give you access to the full spectrum of values is incredibly important; after that, it’s a matter of tons of mileage and practice. Once you commit to that, nothing can stop you.

Safety & Toxicity: Can One Get Lead Poisoning from Pencil Lead?

The short answer is No. It’s impossible to get lead poisoning from graphite pencils because they contain no lead. Graphite and lead are chemically and atomically completely different substances and are only slightly similar in appearance—but even visually they are clearly different, as you can see below.

Graphite pencils are usually classified as nontoxic because graphite is a minimally toxic carbon-based substance when swallowed or drawn onto the skin. So, when you accidentally poke your hands with your sharpened pencil, you won’t be poisoned or infected by the graphite—but, as with any injury, you should immediately clean and tend to the affected area.

The biggest danger with pencils lies in where you poke or stab yourself (or someone else, but…let’s avoid stabbing people, shall we?) and how severely the resulting injury is. If you somehow are stabbed with a pencil forcefully enough to draw large amounts of blood, the bleeding and severity of the wound is a more immediate concern than the presence of graphite and immediate medical attention would be necessary.

Avoid having pencils (or any other tool) anywhere near your eyes, mouth, nose, and any other sensitive body part or orifice. It’s never a good idea to insert or ingest foreign materials, so if you tend to fidget please get a fidget toy instead of chewing on your pencil!

Working with graphite powder, rather than pencils, can get a little dicey. Powders and dusts always come with inhalation and respiratory risks, so when using graphite powder as a medium be sure to wear a simple mask or face covering and keep your workspace well ventilated. Inhalation of graphite powder can cause irritation to the respiratory tract, coughing, shortness of breath and black sputum.

Long term or chronic exposure to graphite powder has been associated with the development of a lung disease called pneumoconiosis. Ingestion of large amounts of graphite powder may cause gastrointestinal irritation.[1]

Basically, graphite pencils and powder are safe to use and minimally toxic so long as you don’t eat, inhale, or seriously stab yourself with them. Getting a bit of graphite onto your skin while you work won’t harm you at all, but do be sure to wash your hands when you’re done working.

Hey, look! You’re still here, and we’re done! Thank you for hanging in there with me. I know this topic was more technical, but I hope I was able to keep it interesting and answer your questions about graphite pencils, the pencil grading scale, and the safe use of pencils. If you have any questions or feedback, please let me know in the comments below.

Further Reading

The History of the Pencil by Pen2Paper


[1] http://www.physics.purdue.edu/primelab/safety/MSDS/graphite%20%20-%20Mega%20Graphite.pdf

How to draw Scales (Coming in 2024)

Welcome

All about Scales

Making reference boards

Exploration and study

Observations

Shapes, forms, and construction

Natural variations

How to draw Scales step by step

Rendering scales

Materials

Light

Colors

Creatures with Scales

In our world, there are a wider variety of creatures with scales than you might expect. Fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, and arthropods all contain species with scales.

Real-world creatures with scales

  • Pangolin
  • Armadillo
  • Butterfly & Moth
  • Dragon Snake (and all snakes)
  • Great White Shark
  • Sea Eagle
  • Crocodile
  • Musky Rat-kangaroo
  • Scaly-tailed Squirrels
  • Woodpecker
  • Iguana
  • Pineapple fish
  • Lemon shark
  • Ostrich

Fantasy creatures with scales

  • Dragons
  • Mermaids

How to draw Scales from Imagination

Thank you and farewell!

Reflected Light: A clear-cut explanation for painting reflected light 2024

Reflected Light - A clear-cut explanation for painting reflected light

Welcome to Reflected Light with CecelyV!

Hello and welcome, fellow artists! Thank you for taking some time to read my article on reflected light.

There is a lot to understand about The Fundamentals of Light and The Fundamentals of Art, and sometimes it can all feel large and overwhelming. In this article, I’ve broken out reflected light, a small and vital piece of light fundamentals, to explain and demonstrate what it is and how it works.

I hope to help you build your understanding of light one small step at a time, so it all feels less daunting. To make this article helpful, I’ve kept the focus narrow. This article is only about reflected light. I’ll explain what reflected light is and how it’s different from other light effects, and I will give examples and demonstrate how to paint reflected light.

Understanding light

To fully understand how light works, we need to study it. In my Fundamentals of Light article, I explore and explain the basics of light fundamentals. But, first, let’s review a few points that will help with understanding reflected light.

Light source

A light source is anything that produces its own light. Typically, we draw and paint light effects from familiar natural sources such as the sun and fire and artificial sources like light bulbs.

Each light source has its own properties and characteristics, and most produce a lot of heat to emit light. A couple of exceptions are bioluminescence and chemiluminescence, which see light photons produced without much or any heat (“cool light”). We see bioluminescence in fireflies and jellyfish, and we see chemiluminescence in glow sticks.

Reflectors

Objects and organisms that do not create the light that comes from them are called Reflectors. So, for example, our moon, mirrors, eyes, and other things with reflective surfaces are all reflectors–they all reflect light from a light source but do not emit (or produce) any light of their own.

Understanding light means exploring light sources as well as objects that act as reflectors.

Light rays

reflected light - light rays
Rays of strong sunlight

Light always travels in a straight line called a ray. However, the direction of light rays is changed through reflection and refraction, and what I’m covering is fundamental light reflection.

Direct light and Indirect light

For a surface to receive direct light means there is nothing between the light source and that surface. Therefore, the lighting is directly contacting the surface with no interference to affect the direction of the light rays.

Indirect light is light that is being diffused or reflected in some way before it reaches the lit surface–its direction is changed. This means before light hits an object’s surface, there is quite a lot of light bouncing around off other surfaces.

A sunny day experienced through a bedroom window is an example of indirect light. The sun’s light is being diffused and reflected off clouds, the atmosphere, the ground, the window glass, and the bedroom walls and objects to light the bedroom. The light source, in this case, the sun, is not shining its light directly into the bedroom, but its light is illuminating the room in an indirect way.

Primary light source

In the example of a bedroom on a sunny day, the primary light source is the sun. There aren’t any other light sources acting on the bedroom in this scenario. When light bounces off so many surfaces to illuminate an area like that it’s also an example of ambient light.

When lighting a scene, the primary light source is the strongest (most intense and bright) light source that is responsible for most or all of the light and shadows occurring. A primary light source can be any type of light as long as it is the main source of lighting.

Secondary light sources tend to be smaller, closer to the subject, less intense, and less bright.

What is reflected light in art?

Reflected light in art is the same as reflected light in nature. The only difference is nature doesn’t need tutorials like we do ?.

Reflected light happens when light emitted from a source bounces (or reflects) off objects and surfaces and illuminates other areas/surfaces/objects with that reflecting light.

Here are some examples of reflected light.

What is the difference between light and reflected light?

Context, intensity, and whether or not absorption is happening are the main differences between the terms “light” and “reflected light.”

Light and reflected light in context

When we refer to light, we’re usually talking about a light source–something that is producing and emitting its own light that we can see. So, when we say, “turn on a light”, “light a candle”, or “hand me that flashlight” we know we’re talking about light sources like lamps, candlelight, or a flashlight.

If you were to walk into a bedroom ambiently lit as in the earlier example, you’d probably say the room appears “bright” because of the light falling through the bedroom window and light bouncing off various reflective surfaces. It’s not likely you’d say, “what a nice bedroom with reflective light.”

So, the context is important. Typically, we don’t refer to most lights as reflected lights unless we are specifically calling out the fact that light is being reflected.

Intensity

There is a significant difference between the intensity of source light and that of reflected light. Source light loses most of its intensity when it begins bouncing around off surfaces and objects, so reflected light is much weaker than the source that creates it.

An exception to this rule happens when light is bounced off a highly reflective surface, such as glass or water.

Absorption

Let’s use direct sunlight as an example. When it is reflected (or bounced) off highly reflective surfaces such as water, glass, or a mirror, direct sunlight loses little to none of its intensity because almost none of the sunlight is being absorbed by those materials. It is all being reflected.

Most reflected light we see has been bounced off surfaces with considerably lower reflectivity than water or glass, meaning much of the light is being absorbed. The absorption results in lost intensity for the bit of light that gets reflected, which is why reflected light appears so much weaker than source light.

What is reflected color in art?

This isn’t really a thing. “Reflected color” is really just light that has reflected off a colored object and taken on the local color of that object, or it’s colored light that is being reflected or both. We cannot see color–or anything else–without light, so there is no such thing as “reflected color” only reflected light that has a color.

What is reflected light in drawing?

Reflected light is the same whether you’re drawing or painting, or observing light in real life. The medium you use to describe light in your image doesn’t change the behavior of light. Reflected light in a drawing is still light that is coming from a source and being reflected off an object or surface to illuminate another area, surface, or object with the light reflected.

The main concept to understand with reflected light is the light’s behavior when it is being reflected, and the materials it is reflecting off of. Technique changes with the medium used, but the behavior of light will remain consistent and predictable.

What is the difference between reflections and reflected light?

The reflectivity of the object/surface material and the light intensity involved is what separates reflected light from what we usually call a reflection. The behavior of the light is the same for both, but the refractive index and reflectivity of materials play a big role in how light’s behavior is conveyed to our eyes.

With reflected light, we see an indication of an object’s reflection on a matte surface, whereas we see clear to mirror-like forms with reflections.

Examples of Reflection vs. Reflected Light

Differences and changes in materials’ characteristics can alter light’s direction and the appearance of reflections. As you can see in the images below, the quality of reflected light and reflections is noticeably different as materials, form, and light intensity change.

Below are more images to demonstrate the differences between reflected light and a reflection.

In the first image, everything above the horizon–sky, clouds, mountains, and treeline–is reflected perfectly on the mirror-like (specular) flat surface of the lake’s still waters.

In the second image, we have much the same effect but with even more reflections happening on the glass sphere. The spheric form and highly reflective–and transparent!–quality of the glass further alter the direction of the light through refraction as well as reflection, so there’s a lot going on there.

The same is true of the third image, but the soap bubble has an additional characteristic of iridescence that drastically alters the appearance of the reflections cast upon its surface.

All three images show highly reflective materials, each with its own sets of characteristics that greatly impact the quality and appearance of the reflections.

The next three images show how changes to the materials can alter the specularity of the reflections, creating more of a Lambertian effect.

In the first image above on the left, we have an evening/night scene with artificial light reflected on the surface of a large body of water. In our earlier example of light reflected off water, we had a daytime scene and still water that created a mirror image of the objects above the horizon line. In this image, the water is not still and the light sources are smaller and less intense.

This change to the material and light intensity creates a Lambertian reflection rather than a specular reflection. The main difference between the two is the texture of the surface material receiving the reflection. The water is still highly reflective, but it is now choppy and textured instead of still and smooth and that creates more of a matte (diffusely reflecting) surface on the water.

Smaller, lower intensity light that is bouncing around more on a now matte surface means we see reflected light on the water rather than reflections of forms.

The next image with a person’s reflection on wet sand applies the same principle. The surface material here is actually wet sand, not water. Sand is not reflective, but soaking wet sand on a shore when the tide is in? That scenario combines the texture of the sand with the reflectivity of the water, and we get a reflection that is somewhere between Lambertian and Specular.

The last image shows a wooden cylinder next to a purple plastic cup. The cylinder has a matte surface, the plastic cup shiny and reflective. When lit and placed near each other, we see reflected purple light (Lambertian reflection) on the wooden cylinder, and a more specular form reflection on the plastic cup.

Notice on the cup we can clearly see the reflection of the wooden cylinder, the light source, and a couple of other items on the shadow side of the cup. All of the reflections on the cup also have a purple tint, reminding us that local color for each object is always a factor.

Understanding how reflected light works

First things first, let’s review some basic light and shadow terminology, shall we? In the image below, I’ve labeled all the stuff and gubbins and you can always refer to my Fundamentals of Light article if you need an in-depth explanation.

We’ve discussed materials, reflectivity, and light intensity as a few factors that affect how light reflects. A couple of other factors to consider when we’re studying reflected light are distance and position.

The next few callout images demonstrate how the distance between objects impacts the amount of reflected light that is able to reach the subject.

In this next round of callouts, I’ll demonstrate more about how object position and materials affect reflected light.

You might have noticed that most of the time when we observe light bouncing onto an object or surface it does so in the form shadow (dark side, shadowed areas) and/or in the cast shadow areas. The reason is all about positioning. When one object is in front of another it will cast a shadow on that object, reflecting little to no light onto it. This is because the light falling on any object will reflect out at the same angle it came in (Law of Reflection).

In the image with the red box and the wooden cylinder, we see a slight exception because of the proximity of the objects. The intensity of the light, and the proximity of the objects to the light source and to each other, means the light is able to bounce around from the source to the cylinder, to the box, and back onto the cylinder giving the red box’s cast shadow a red tint.

Since materials play such a big role in how light interacts with objects, it’s worthwhile to examine a few more instances of how changes to material characteristics affect everything from form shadows to cast shadows, to the tint and shade of reflections and shadows, and the edge of a shadow or reflection.

Light transmission is a separate but obviously related light effect. When materials are translucent or transparent light is allowed to pass through to varying degrees, and can then bounce around on other objects and surfaces. Since it is a separate area, I won’t lose focus by delving into it here, but I thought it would be helpful to offer a few examples so you’ll know the differences in the light effects you observe as you study and practice the Fundamentals of Light.

How to paint reflected light

I created a basic demonstration that I hope helps bring all this together in a simple example. My demo uses simple matte forms so the focus remains on reflected light. Painting reflections and specularity are a whole other demonstration and require a lot more explanation of additional factors like global illumination, so I’ll save that for another time.

Just a few more points

I wanted to mention a few things about local color, colored light, and shadows. In my examples and demonstration, I focused on how light reflects onto objects rather than in shadows or on surfaces. It’s important to mention that the same behavior happens in shadows and on surfaces as on objects. Even a dark shadow can be illuminated with some reflected light, and create interesting visual tonal contrast.

One exception to this, however, is occlusion shadows. The absolute darkest part of any image is where no light can reach– and bounce light is far too weak to penetrate occlusion shadows. Darker shadows will still have color and temperature even if they aren’t illuminated in any way (shadows aren’t really black), and they are still impacted by the local color of the object casting the shadow and the surface the shadow is being cast upon.

When the light source is a colored light, like blue light or the yellow light of the sun, the hue and temperature of the shadows and bounce light will be affected. Of course, we must still account for light intensity and changes to materials.

These are all things we should keep in mind as our understanding and practice of lighting effects grows, and there are a lot of moving parts. If it feels overwhelming, just break down your practice into smaller steps with fewer factors and build up over time.

At first, I recommend tackling basic lighting and simple bounce light on objects, in forms shadows, and in cast shadows with matte materials.

Another Light and Shadow installment, signing off!

As always, Thank you so very much for stopping by my site and reading what I hope you found to be a great article. If not a great article, I hope you found it helpful. If it wasn’t helpful, then yikes! Please let me know that, too, so I can find areas to improve.

If you have any questions, need guidance, or have feedback for me, please send them in the comments section below. I would love to hear from you.

Good luck and best wishes on your practice! Stay safe, take care, and happy drawing!

How to draw wings (Coming in 2024)

Welcome to my how to draw wings drawing tutorial!

Let’s learn about wings!

Exploration and study: Drawing wings focused on shape and form

Shape breakouts and natural variations

How to draw wings: form construction

How to draw wings: form dissection and interior studies

How to draw wings step-by-step tutorial

Drawing wings in Perspective

How to draw wings with light and shadow

The Details and colors of wings

How to draw wings from Imagination!

How to draw a cactus (Coming in 2024)

Welcome to my how to draw a cactus drawing tutorial!

Let’s learn about cacti!

Exploration and study: cactus drawing focused on shape and form

Shape breakouts and natural variations

How to draw a cactus: form construction

How to draw a cactus: form dissection and interior studies

How to draw a cactus step-by-step tutorial

Cactus drawing in Perspective

How to draw a cactus with light and shadow

The Details and colors of cacti

How to draw a cactus from Imagination!

How to draw a bat (Coming in 2024)

Welcome to my how to draw a bat drawing tutorial!

Let’s learn about bats!

Exploration and study: Bat drawing focused on shape and form

Shape breakouts and natural variations

How to draw a bat: form construction

How to draw a bat: form dissection and interior studies

How to draw a bat step-by-step tutorial

Bat drawing in Perspective

How to draw a bat with light and shadow

The Details and colors of bats

How to draw a bat from Imagination!

How to draw a volleyball (Coming in 2024)

Welcome to how to draw a volleyball drawing tutorial!

Let’s learn about volleyballs!

Exploration and study: Volleyball drawing focused on shape and form

Shape breakouts and natural variations

How to draw a volleyball: form construction

How to draw a volleyball: form dissection and interior studies

How to draw a volleyball step-by-step tutorial

Volleyball drawing in Perspective

How to draw a volleyball with light and shadow

The Details and colors of volleyballs

How to draw a volleyball from Imagination!

How to draw a football – A Fun & painless football drawing tutorial for 2024!

How to draw a football

Welcome to how to draw a football!

Hello and welcome!

In this how-to-draw, we’ll be learning how to draw a football using shapes, forms, and lines.

American football uses a very differently shaped ball compared with other sports. It is more oblong and looks a bit like a short drum with cones attached to each end.

Its odd shape can make football drawing a little awkward, but I’ve come up with a couple of useful tricks to keep our football drawings from looking wobbly. I’ll go over the basic shapes and forms of footballs and show you the basic construction steps.

I’ll show you how to draw a football step-by-step, how to create a football drawing in perspective and talk about some of the ball surface details.

As always, let’s start by learning a little about what we’re drawing. The better we understand what we’re drawing, the better our football drawings will be.

Let’s learn about footballs!

American football is hugely popular in the United States and Canada. Cheering for your favorite team and tossing around a football with the kids is a lot of fun. And who doesn’t enjoy those creative Superbowl ads?

Where it’s most popular, a football is also known as a “pigskin” and used to play gridiron football. There are 32 teams in the American National Football League (NFL), with each team using 11-player teams. In the Canadian Football League (CFL), teams feature 12 players.

For the professional collegiate leagues, footballs are most often made of brown tanned cowhide leather and stamped with a pebble-grain texture for easier gripping. Balls for average recreation or youth leagues may also be made of composite rubber, plastic, or rubber.

Construction of each football requires four panels of leather or plastic, and two of the panels are laced together. Each ball weighs about 14 to 15 ounces.

If you’d like to see how footballs are made, check out this helpful Youtube video:

Drawing a football is almost as easy as watching it, so let’s explore its shapes and forms. This will help us learn how to get a football shape so we can draw an easy football (and learn how to draw a football for kids, too!)

Exploration and study: Football drawing focused on shape and form

When I’m learning how to draw something, I begin by looking for references. It’s always helpful to create your own reference board to help with creating your exploration and study sketches.

If you need some help learning how to create your own reference board, I made a video guide to show you how.

A good reference board is really important because it helps us learn how to understand and draw our subject. The ref board I created for this how to draw a football tutorial is below.

Feel free to use it for your sketches!

If you’d like some extra help with wrapping your mind around the fundamentals before “tackling” a football drawing, check out my article Top 5 Art Fundamentals for Beginners.

Once I have all my refs, I begin my study sketches.

During this phase, I use pencil, pen, and colored pencil on a sheet of paper to break down the major shapes and forms of a football. I observe the location of the curve lines, stripes, laces, and stitching along the middle and center of the ball.

I visually measure the length and size of the curved lines, middle circle shape, and all the other lines and elements to see which are the same length and where each lives on the ball’s surface. Each of these things serves as a marker that helps us with our football drawing.

This is my messy phase, and it’s a lot of fun! ?

I encourage you to let yourself make a big ‘ole mess on your page as you learn how to draw a football. Here are my first wobbly, messy sketches:

One of the first things I noticed as I began sketching for this how to draw a football tutorial was how awkward the transition from the middle of the ball to its tip is. Visually, it looks normal. But when I started to connect my shapes and forms to create that area, it felt odd and wobbly my first several tries.

At first, it seems like a simple circle is enough to define the center shape of the ball. I started that way before going on to connect the ends, but more often than not it made my football drawing come out funky, bumpy, and wobbly–which is totally fine at first! This is the phase for making a messed up messy mess as you learn how to draw a football. Don’t despair at your wobbles and bobbles–It’s all good! This is all a normal part of the learning process, I promise!

When I run into this kind of thing at any point, I take some time to re-evaluate my shapes and forms and look for ways to improve my form construction process.

How to draw a football: form construction

After a bit more sketching exploration, I came up with a solution I like better. I added a cylindrical drum shape to help firm up my construction, which helped keep my football shape from turning wobbly.

After several more sketches, I found that using more construction lines, shapes and forms helped a lot when it came to getting my football drawing to have that recognizable football shape.

Adding more structure to a drawing you’re having a challenging time can go a long way toward helping you understand and draw your subject better.

Shape breakouts and variations

Normally, at this stage of my how-to-draw tutorials, I like to give examples of the natural shape variations that occur in the subject, but…that’s not really a thing with footballs ?

Unless they are deflated, deformed, or damaged in some way, the overall shape of a football–and any sporting ball, really–remains the same. The variations we see with a football are found in the materials it’s made with and its surface designs with things like logos and coloring.

Other variations that might interest you as you learn how to draw a football can be found in how the ball has evolved over time and how it compares to other sports’ balls, such as a soccer ball (which the rest of the world calls a futbol).

There is some speculation that the ball of choice for America’s Game started out as an inflated pig bladder, but that is hard to verify–though I did a search and found some fun pictures from places like The Smithsonian Magazine and Scoutlife.org!

I don’t own these images, but I’ve credited their sources as best I can. For more information, and to see the source of each photo, just click on the images below.

how to draw a football_how footballs have changed over time
Evolution of the American football
how to draw a football_inflated pig bladder football
Inflated pig bladder football.
how to draw a football_football vs soccer ball
American football compared to World Futbol (soccer)
how to draw a football_ball from 1874
A football from 1874.
how to draw a football_american football vs rugby ball
American football vs Rugby

How to draw a football step by step tutorial

Now that we’ve found our references and done some sketching, let’s jump into how to draw a football step-by-step!

how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 1

How to draw an easy football, Step 1

First, draw a line guide on your page. This line represents the unseen middle of the ball from tip to tip. This kind of guiding or action line helps orient the rest of your curved lines, shapes, and forms.

Step 2

Next, draw another line perpendicular to your first guiding line. This second line helps you start to place the round center area of the ball.

how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 2
how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 3

Step 3

Now, connect each line point to create a diamond-shaped envelope. This establishes the basic area where your ball will “live” in your drawing.

Remember, these are construction lines. We won’t keep all of them, but they help us develop a solid drawing.

Step 4

Begin rounding off the overall football shape inside your envelope by drawing curved lines near each corner as shown.

Here, I started with rounding the center area of the ball.

how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 4
how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 5

Step 5

Next, I drew small circles on the ends of my first and longest guiding line. This helps with making the ball’s tips rounded instead of pointy, and gets us closer to a football shape.

Step 6

Use more curved lines to start defining the shape of your football drawing.

how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 6
how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 7

Step 7

Now, you have a football shape!

The line and shape guides helped keep it from going all wobbly ?.

Step 8

Add some stripes to help your drawing look more like a real football.

Be sure to use curve lines as you go around the surface. Making the stripe lines too straight will make your drawing feel flat.

These surface details help us identify our object. This is a good stage to add any other designs or personal touches you’d like for your drawing.

how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 8
how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 9

Step 9

Some finishing touches with a marker or pen help the football drawing stand out.

Final step

Erase your construction lines and, tada!

A completed football drawing!

how to draw an easy football_how to draw a football for kids_step 10

So, how was it? Not too bad, huh? These steps came from my how to draw a football exploration and study phase. I came up with a couple more versions for this how to draw a football tutorial in case you could use some more structure help as I did.

Football drawing in Perspective

Knowing how to draw a football in perspective will be helpful if you’re drawing from a game you just saw played or from your imagination.

Here are some examples of how to draw a football in one and two-point perspectives.

The Details of footballs

Another part of learning how to draw a football is understanding how to construct the stitches and laces that make the ball so recognizable.

The next group of images will visually take you through the steps of how to draw a football’s lacing and stitching details.

Thank you & Farewell!

Hey, look! You made it to the end of this how to draw a football tutorial! There are a lot of choices out there, so even if you just took a few seconds to scroll through my article to find the bits you need, I appreciate you stopping by!

I’m always working to improve the quality of my content and to make sure I’m creating content that helps artists like you on their art journey. I’d love to hear from you! If you have any feedback, questions, or comments for me, please leave them in the comments section below! If there’s an art topic you’re looking for guidance on, please feel free to message me in the comments or email me at cecely@cecelyv.com.

If you liked this article, please share it! Sharing helps us all grow together as artists.

Stay safe and healthy, and Happy Drawing!


How to draw a book (Coming in 2024)

Welcome to how to draw a book drawing tutorial!

Let’s learn about books!

Exploration and study: Book drawing focused on shape and form

Shape breakouts and natural variations

How to draw a book: form construction

How to draw a book: form dissection and interior studies

How to draw a book step-by-step tutorial

Book drawing in Perspective

How to draw a book with light and shadow

The Details and colors of books

How to draw a book from Imagination!

How to draw a Donut: Delicious donut drawing made easy for 2024

how to draw a donut

Welcome to my how to draw a donut tutorial!

Hello and welcome to how to draw a donut on cecelyv.com! In this how-to-draw tutorial, we’ll discuss and demonstrate how to make a tasty donut drawing and learn about the shapes, forms, and variations of a donut.

If you’re familiar with any of my other how-to-draw articles–like how to draw a snake or how to draw a mushroom–then you know I like to emphasize form and structure. I’ll cover the basic shapes and forms that help us create a donut drawing, and I’ll explain the distinction between the donut itself and its delicious topping details.

First things first, let’s make sure we understand what we’re drawing a bit more.

Let’s learn about donuts!

A donut (also spelled “doughnut”) is a sweet treat food made from leavened fried dough. Donuts are popular, yummy to taste, and have a world full of variety, with just about every country and culture, from A to Z, having its version.

Donuts are most often deep-fried from a flour dough, with the two most common types of donuts being the ring donut and the filled donut. The ring donut has a circle shape with a hole cut out of the center, and filled donuts are injected with fruit jelly, cream, custard, or other delectable fillings.

Donut toppings vary wildly, from icing and glaze to sprinkles, frosting, chocolate, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and fruit. The hole from the center of a ring donut is often cooked as a donut hole.

Other shapes include twists, balls, buns, and thick and flattened small loaves. Donuts are also divided into cake and yeast-risen types and can be purchased everywhere, from grocery stores to cafes to donut shops and gas station convenience stores.

The History of Donuts

A cookbook published in 1485 gives us the first mention of fried dough cakes (as far as we know), so donuts have been around for quite some time. If you’d like to learn more about the history of the donut, here are a few sources to check out:

How Donuts are made

We like to eat them, and we’re making donut drawings, so we might as well look at how donuts are made, right? It’ll give us another good visual and insight for our drawings, and that’s always a good thing ??.

Time to make some donut drawings!

Okay! You’re probably like, “Finally, she gets to the point!” ??

I know it can seem like a lot of extra stuff, but how can we draw what we don’t understand?

Now, let’s learn how to draw a donut and have some fun!

Exploration and study: Donut drawing shapes and forms

We know enough about donuts and their variations to make some drawings, so let’s start with reference boards and sketches!

If you need help making your reference board, I have an article and a video to help.

Donut reference boards help us sketch!

By studying references, we can develop a good idea of the basic shapes and forms as we begin making sketches and drawings. I like to do this for each of my drawing tutorials. Shapes and forms give us structure, and structure is vital.

How to draw a donut – My exploration and study sketches

It’s essential to do all the study sketches you feel necessary to be comfortable with your subject.

Donuts have relatively simple structures, so most of the drawing work is in the details of toppings like coloring, glaze, icing, sprinkles, shadows, and light, whether you put it on a drawing of a plate or with fruit in the middle, etc.

Here are my study sketches from my how to draw a donut explorations:

Compared with study sketches in my other tutorials, this one is pretty light on drawings–and that’s okay. If the subject is simple, it is easier to understand and draw.

Shape breakouts and variations

By studying my reference boards, I delivered the outlines and edges of an entire list of common donut varieties for us to draw. These outlines and shapes give us the basis for the forms we need as we learn how to draw a donut, and the form provides us with the structure we need so the delicious icing, glaze, and coloring have something to live on top of in our donut drawing.

Next, let’s have some fun with forms by tackling the form construction for each of these shape outlines.

How to draw a donut: basic form construction

To learn how to draw a donut, I started with the most common and recognizable type–the ring donut.

For beginners, I recommend starting with the most basic shapes and forms. Starting from simple shapes will help you grasp each edge, oval, circle, and line as you make your sketch.

This approach works for everyone from kids to hobbyists and professionals and can be applied to any medium from pencil and paper to crayons, colored pencils, or a digital format. Of course, if you need to trace at first to get started, that’s okay too!

Let’s have fun with donut forms!

How to draw a donut – more form construction!

I mentioned earlier that I identified more than one example of common donut shapes. Whether there’s a wavy line, curved lines, or straight lines, each shape gives us an example of how to start building our donut drawing forms.

It’s essential to my mission to emphasize form and structure in all of my drawing tutorials, so I created visual form construction examples for several of the common donut types to help you learn how to draw a donut of any style you choose.

To practice these form construction steps and learn how to draw a donut in different ways, follow the visual form construction steps below!

When in doubt, remember to lead by drawing an entire shape, like an ellipse, circle, oval, etc. It serves us better than individual lines or edges when we have a whole shape.

The twist type is less round than a basic/traditional donut, so I start with a box shape to capture its overall soft boxy form.

The churro is very tubular in its construction, essentially made of one long cylinder.

Learning how to draw a donut that is a cake type is a little more complex, but we can handle it! The cake types tend to be the ones with more complex top forms and toppings, so it makes sense that their form construction is a little more involved.

How to draw a donut step-by-step tutorial (from my sketches & Imagination!)

Next up in how to draw a donut, I will go through the “official” step-by-step tutorial for drawing a basic ring-type donut.

What you saw earlier with all the form construction was essentially a collection of visual step-by-step tutorials. I wanted to make sure I shared multiple ways of how to draw a donut with you so you can choose for yourself which type of donut you want to create.

Follow along with me, and you’ll have a realistic donut picture, complete with a slight indication of shadows. I won’t delve too deeply into the shadows and light or details in this tutorial because that crosses into the realm of painting and rendering, and we need a solid drawing to paint on top of first ?.

This step-by-step should work for kids, too. So let’s get to it!

how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 01

How to draw a donut, Step 1

Start with a horizontal oval, also called an ellipse. Extend two lines straight down from each end of your oval.

Step 2

Connect the straight lines you extended with another oval/ellipse.

You’ve created the form for your donut hole!

how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 02
how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 03

Step 3

Now that we have the empty middle of the donut, it’s time to construct the ring donut itself.

Add two large circles on the horizontal ends of the donut hole form you finished in step 2. Make the circles as large and as round as you’d like.

Step 4

Connect the outside bottom edges of the circles with a large ellipse as shown.

This creates the bottom plane of your donut.

how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 04
how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 05

Step 5

Draw another ellipse to connect the outside top edges of the circles. This creates the top plane of your donut where all the toppings will live.

Step 6

Now, it’s time to erase some of your construction lines to prepare for the next stage of drawing some tasty toppings.

It helps to emphasize the inside edge closest to you in your drawing. When drawn next to your donut hole, it adds a sense of depth and three-dimensionality.

how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 06
how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 07

Step 7

Sketch in some ellipses around the ring of your donut to help you visualize how the form turns.

This will give you a guide to help make your toppings look more realistic.

Step 8

Sketch in the basic shape, size, and directionality of your toppings.

I chose a simple icing with light sprinkles, so here I blocked that in here with a different colored pencil.

how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 08
how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 09

Step 9

To make room for the detail shapes and forms, I took some time to erase my construction lines more carefully.

Step 10

I continued the detail phase’s block-in step here by adding the shapes and forms of each sprinkle.

I made the sprinkles out of tiny circles, 3D curls, and itty bitty cylinders. They may be small, but they still have form and mass!

I also added a little bit of color to the bottom of the donut. Using brown, I decided to make this a chocolate donut with icing and sprinkles on top!

how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 10
how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 11

Step 11

To make the drawing clear, and to keep from accidentally erasing my work during clean-up of my construction lines, I went ahead and did a trace of everything in black marker.

Step 12

The last step is color, shadow, and light!

I didn’t want this how to draw a donut tutorial to turn into a painting tutorial, so I didn’t do much with the light or shadows.

Still a slight indication of shadows under the icing is enough for our purposes here.

how to draw a donut_step-by-step tutorial 12

Congratulations! You’ve completed my how to draw a donut step-by-step tutorial!

The Details and coloring of donuts

Now you know all about how to draw a donut!

I want to offer a little more clarity on what constitutes “details,” so I created a short video to explain (COMING SOON!)

A warm farewell with encouragement

Thank you for visiting my site!

I hope you enjoyed my how to draw a donut tutorial, and I hope you had fun making donut drawings with me!

Remember, it doesn’t matter how many times you need to erase, or whether you need to trace or start again on a new piece of paper several times. It doesn’t matter if your donut drawing is round or if the donut hole you drew is a little wobbly. Learn the process, find your way of drawing. Keep at it! Art isn’t about being “good”, it’s about how making art makes you feel.

Try this with crayons and other media, try it with kids–or other kids if you are a kid!

Have fun and keep drawing! The rest will come.

If you enjoyed my how to draw a donut tutorial, please share it! I’d love to hear your feedback, so if you have a comment or question for me please leave it in the comments section below! If you didn’t like my how to draw a donut tutorial, please tell me that, too! Part of my site mission is to help as many other artists as I can with my content, so I’m open to feedback that helps my content improve.