I got very excited yesterday as I finally did something that resembled shading that I was happy with!
This is a combination of a warming up exercise suggested by the boringly titled 'Pencil Drawing Techniques'(D. Lewis). It says to begin by drawing a bunch of circles and lines and stuff.
Draw from the elbow,
draw a pretend circle in the air before drawing it on the paper,
press down harder at the start of the circle than the end (then reverse this)
and do it fast.
Once I had my little circles I started shading and smudging and got the above.
I was so happy, I want to redraw everything I've done now but do it better!
Today I am continuing with shading circles, but the light source is now coming from slightly above, rather than the same level as the circle.
This is what I've got so far:
And here's a circle up close:
