Drawing a shadow adds realism to a drawing.
Drawing a shadow on a drawing is one way of giving the illusion that the drawing is a 3D image. Other ways of making an image look 3D include perspectives and shading. Like shading, shadows also add realistic details such as lighting effects to a drawing. Drawing a shadow is more complex than shading, because it requires more set up, and it's also simpler than shading, because it doesn't require you to change the darkness of the shade.
Instructions
Drawing the Image
1. Draw a square on a blank sheet of drawing paper using a pencil. Before you can draw a shadow, you have to draw the object which is going to cast the shadow. A cube is an easy enough object to begin with, and a square is the first step to creating a cube.
2. Draw a line from each corner of the square at a 45 degree angle. Each line must be the same length and pointing in the same direction.
3. Connect each end of the lines with another square. This will create the illusion of a cube.
Drawing the Guidelines
4. Draw a horizontal line that goes across the entire sheet of paper and the bottom half of the cube.
5. Select a point far from the cube toward the left and on the horizontal line drawn on step one. It doesn't matter how far this point is from the cube, but more than a couple of inches away would work best.
6. Draw a line from the point selected on step 2 to one of the bottom corners of the cube. Repeat this step for all the bottom corners of the cube.
7. Draw a 45 degree line from above the top-most line of the cube and down the center of the face of the cube and across the lines drawn on the previous steps. Repeat this step for the upper left hand corner of the face of the cube and the upper right hand corner of the face of the cube.
Drawing the Shadow
8. Draw a dot on the point where the right-most 45 degree guideline meets the bottom-most horizontal guideline.
9. Draw a dot where the center 45 degree guideline meets the center-most horizontal guideline.
10. Draw a dot where the leftmost 45 degree guideline meets the top-most horizontal guideline.
11. Connect the dots and shade in all the space between the dots and the cube making sure to stay within the top-most and bottom-most horizontal guidelines.
12. Erase all the guidelines not within the shaded area.
