Add Shading To Your Posters with These Easy Tips

Hello again! So last time we covered 2 color tricks to make your Stuff2Color poster pop. This time we'll learn how to create a 3-D look to make your poster pop off the page. So follow along with me as I color the giant line art poster "Country Bridge". We'll just focus on the bridge itself for now.

So the first thing to do when shading a poster is to figure out where the light is coming from. If its a scenery like this one and the sun isn't drawn in, I just put in my own imaginary sun to help guide my shading. In this case, the light is directly opposite of us, so the light would be hitting the other side of the bridge, leaving our visible side in shadow. Now grab three shades of brown, or whichever color you want to make the bridge. You'll need a light, medium, and dark pen, pencil, or crayon (hopefully you have a bunch of colored pencils or markers to choose three shades from).

Start by highlighting the pieces of wood that get the most sun with your lightest shade, in this case I highlighted the very tops of each board and the planks across the bridge since the sun would be shining right down on them.

Then I color my darkest brown where my darkest shadows will be, the wood facing away from the sun, as well as the posts hidden under the bridge (they won't be getting much sunlight at all).

Finally, I take my middle brown to color in the rest. This is for the wood that will be getting some sun, but not as much as our highlighted boards. And there you have your 3-dimensional bridge.

No shading on this one. Notice the difference!

Lets compare it to a bridge that I colored all in the same brown without shading....Not nearly as much fun to look at!

And now its time for your show-and-tell. I can't wait to see your 3-D masterpieces! And as always, feel free to ask any questions or bring up any topics you'd like to talk about in the comment section below. See ya soon!

Erin