Start with a linear layin, in this case it’s just a circle and some ellipses for the cast shadow and terminator
Separate light from shadow with a flat value
Model the core shadow and reflected light
Render the halftones
Add the highlight
Deepen the occlusion shadow
Fade the penumbra
And make your final adjustments

The most important aspect of this exercise is getting your value relationships correct. If your edges are rough, and your spheres look like they're sculpted from clay or play-doh, that's totally fine!

Level 2

You’ll be doing timed studies. This will force you to internalize the process and improve efficiency.

Untimed - You give yourself as much time as you need to get it right. One slow, fully rendered, realistic sphere, with careful edges and clean values.
25 minutes - This is still plenty of time. You'll have several minutes to spend on refining each element.
10 minutes - You’re gonna start feeling rushed. You don’t have the time to labor over any details. You have only a minute or 2 to quickly indicate the correct values of each element.
5 minutes - This is hard. Don’t try to make your drawing look polished. Simplify everything and get that quick impression working. Repeat these until you internalize the process and get faster.

Reducing time forces you to prioritize. Taking 5 minutes instead of an hour to shade a sphere means cutting 57 minutes of something. You have to identify the critical 5% of effort creating the illusion of depth. You can carry that knowledge over to your longer drawings and spend more of your effort on those critical things.

Timed studies also build mark-making efficiency and better draftsmanship. You don't have time to overwork your lines and smudge things around. With no time to overwork your lines, you have to practice putting down a few strokes that indicate your intention.

Submit Your Drawings

After you’re done, upload your completed sphere drawings below. And try to reflect on it. What did you struggle with, what worked, what didn't. This helps me provide better feedback and allows you to practice more deliberately.

Level 2, write down what you prioritized, what you removed, if your approach changed at all between the studies, and anything you learned about efficient rendering.

Deadline - submit by April 18, 2025 for a chance to be in the critique video!

@purpleart

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Level 2 submission in graphite. Thought I made them more difficult by drawing large, so also tried a small one in 5 minutes, but it didn't make much difference!

ANX804U

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12h

amazing boost in confidence until critique, right now feeling amazing. This went so well i might do this in acrylic, graphite and markers. Thanks yo. BUT I am short of time due to exams so i might not complete those ones in time. BUT I will try my best to do those asap!!!

@julia52

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It looks really great, super excited to see those other versions if you get the time. Totally understand with exams though -_-

Amani Noor (Amu)

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12h

I tried this project twice; once with charcoal on newsprint (1) and then with graphite (2 & 3) . 1. I found that I have a habit of putting values down lighter than they should be and then building them up in layers. Because of this, my quicker studies all look too high-key. Is there is a way to judge the value more accurately right off the bat? 2. I feel that I had less time to fiddle with the edges on the quicker studies, making some of the transitions on those look too abrupt. 3. Especially with the quicker studies, it was hard to shade the halftones cleanly without getting little dark flecks from using slightly uneven pressure. This was especially problematic with the charcoal on newsprint as little rocks in the charcoal pencil kept scratching black flecks into the paper. Is there a way to help deal with those rocks? I also felt like I made the reflected light on the untimed graphite sphere a bit too light. But I wasn't really sure if it needed to be darker or I had just been staring at my drawing for too long. I really enjoyed this project. Thanks so much for the demo!

@brimarie

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They look great👍

Sita Rabeling

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10h

Masterful!😍

Brandon

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12h

all of them looks really good, especially the charcoals. I use graphite only and also tend to be light handed at first, not sure if that's because of the paper being white, kind of misjudge the value ><

Ihori Kobayashi

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13h

My first try. Some difficulties I experienced were: not being able to separate the object and the shadow to make the object look three-dimensional on a plane, not being able to have smooth transitions of value, and the light part of the object looking flat rather than the curved surface. I will practice more.

@writedrawface

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15h

I wasn't happy with my first attempt so I did it a few more times. One thing I struggled with was shading the halftones on the light area, mostly because of how much pressure I was using with my pencil. I switched my grip on the pencil which helped a bit. On the other hand, I feel good about the shadow area, especially the occlusion shadow and reflected light.

ANX804U

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15h

try with alot of lines smushed together with same intensity, width, height, tone and value. like in line segment they gave us practise works or warm ups, do warm ups of shading evenly, or putting lines evenly in starting. than try doing this same excercise with different intensities, than move to filling in shapes with one tone, than 2 values but with high contrast, do it until you are satisfied with contrast. In end add up all of them together, in starting it helps using only values from 6 to 10 or 0 to 6 or 4 to 8. but if I wanted to say in one word you have less experience of controlling pencil, you need more experience that's it.

Alain Rivest

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16h

First attempt.

@romero505

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18h

I would like some feedback, please guys. Love u

Darren

•

23h

1: graphite HB pencil 2: Water color 3: colored Pencil

Liviu

•

I used only a HB (for some reason I like to torture myself).

Brandon

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I would love to have some feedback before I try level 2. Sorry for the long passage. Forgot how much time I spent, as I was enjoying and relaxed then got lost of time, more than an hour for sure. Sequence of shading: same as Stan but I think I actually spend more time on the dark side then the light side, coz at first, I put in some what a mid value thats not dark enough for the terminator. Struggles: 1. The shape of reflected light. Closer to the ground receives more light. I get that part in the demo, but I am not so sure if my shape actually wraps around the form or looks like a stain. 2. The drastic change of value around the terminator is confusing. I guess I am still following the logic that the top is darker than the bottom(closer to the ground) 3. And yes, erasing and then adding back value is difficult... I repeated this process multiple times, just to get the value right back on track... 4. Finding the light source and actually indicating where the light source is with a line on paper is also my struggle, since the light source is in 3d space 5. the light side seems too light, I almost didn't see the highlight? What the value should be in the light side is a struggle. What works: 1. 1 value for most area in the light source. 2. Horizontal hatching to show the planes 3. vertical, with a bit curve hatching (don know what s called? cross contour hatching?) toward light source to describe the sphere, works. 4. cast shadow: 3 values and edges seem ok?

hArtMann

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I prioritized using bigger brushstrokes the less time I had, and used even bigger brushstrokes for the parts that matter less like the shadows and background which gave me more time to work on the light area. This basically created a transition from realistic to painterly the less time I had and the more I simplified the planes into bigger planes. I also had a value palette to quickly lay my values before blending.

Amani Noor (Amu)

•

21h

Love these! They look so realistic and 3D.

Jyayasi (*Jay-o-she*)

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All are so cool. Even the 5 minute one has a certain charm to it. Your project is inspiring me to do this digitally

Brandon

•

each of them looks really great

Margaret Langston

•

Here are my level 2 studies. I found the 10 minute study theory most helpful because I wa forced to relax and not fuss as much. 5 minutes is not enough time!

Pedro Branco

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Here's my lvl1 attempt. I'd like to get some feedback before I do any more as I really struggle with shading and differentiating tones. I'll definitely do more along the week. On another note how much do the materials influence this exercise? My pencil leaves some weirdly grainy marks if I use the side to shade is this a pencil issue? or a paper issue? I'm using standard printer paper and a Carand'ache Technalo 3B pencil.

@breakfast

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2 minutes was funny, so I tried a couple more times! I made the third one tiny so I could fill it in a bit more 😂. I tried to have a plan, but once the timer started it went by so fast! I am happiest with my 4:30 - 4:55 attempt. I’m also glad my daily ellipse and circle warm up practices are paying off! I’m eager to try applying these concepts to other objects! Edit: I just realized it was supposed to be 5 minutes for the shortest attempt, not 2 minutes!! I just tried 5 minutes too! It wasn’t as chaotic as 2 minutes, but still very challenging!

Scott

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Level 1. Three tries. I like some aspects of all three.

@john_rupert

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A very helpful and insightful assignment. I actually found the timed assignments more enjoyable.

Margaret Langston

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Here is my level 1 sphere. I followed the demo and this took me an hour (not including a break.). I didn’t make the shadow dark enough in the very beginning. I was obsessed with getting a good sphere. What is most interesting (and distressing) to me is that my very weak eyes will never give me enough information to do this. I really have to know how to create this from lots of knowledge and imagination.

Osagumwenro Igiehon

•

Here are my attempts! The first one is a follow-along, drawing alongside Stan in the last video. The second one I drew from imagination, very hard but very fun. I think my biggest issue was transitioning the halftones because I constant had to fight against making the gradation even.

•

I did 3 attempts at the level 1. I used graphite pencils: B for the layout and 6B for shading. I do think because I was using paper primarily used for charcoal, that may have affected the shading because I feel I've done good as representing the darkest tones but as I try to get to lighter tones it gets tougher to differentiate between them. Especially on attempt 3 which I think is the best attempt but the reflected light and the halftone look too similar and I can't bring enough emphasis on the highlight. I do have other types of paper so I'll see what that produces.

Conrado "Croc" Ramos Rezende

•

Hey there! Here's my Level 1 attempt and reflections: Materials used: 4B (mainly for shadow separation), HB (for halftones), and 6B (for occlusion shadows and final touches—though I'm still figuring out exactly what "final touches" should include). 1. My first challenge was with the HB pencil; it was overly sharpened, making it difficult to achieve smooth and subtle halftones. I believe this caused the halftones to appear too similar to the reflected light in the shadow area. 2. The toughest part was distinguishing clearly between the halftones and shadows. As I shaded the halftones, I noticed they appeared too close in value to the shadows, prompting me to darken the shadows further using the 4B pencil. However, I'm uncertain if this contrast is sufficient. 3. Another significant challenge was accurately shaping the shadow to reflect the sphere’s form. In the second image, I illustrated my uncertainty: should the core shadow have a sharper, more pointed form or a smoother, curvier one? I'm trying to visualize the form in 3D but couldn't come to a definitive conclusion. 4. Additionally, I realize I need to revisit earlier lessons, particularly on clean shading and value scales. I noticed some uneven shadow spots, causing the sphere to look more like a "clay ball with a highlight," as you mentioned. Apologies for the lengthy reflection—these were my main insights. I'll probably submit Level 2 after reviewing the critiques from this lesson. Thank you once again for an excellent lesson!

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.