SHADING, value and color in a monochromatic piece can be a real challenge. I’m no expert by any means but the can drawing above is my attempt at translating the color values of the Cherry Vanilla Pepsi can. The darkest colors in the real can are the navy blue bottom of the logo and dark red top and bottom. I’ve tried to differentiate the two by shading the blue just a shade darker than the red. The “neutral” color is a light cream and is translated as a lighter shade of gray.

For this assignment I chose to start out working with soft charcoal pencils. I have better control with a pencil in my hand. I started at the bottom of the can. I love starting with the deepest shadow. I also get a feel for the shape of the can by drawing the bottom first. From there I started the shape of the can. My focus was on the outline of the crinkles. Once I had my main outline I started looking at the other crinkles inside the can. Once I felt good about the shape and the crinkles I added the “table” and the corner of the room in the background to put it in perspective. I then began to work on the shading by squinting and seeing that the left side was more in shadow than the right. The right had some bright reflections from the window to it’s right. I shaded the darkest parts first (pressing down hard on the pencil). Then I shaded lighter parts but lightly because I was planning on using my finger for the blend to make a lighter uniform look. Once I was happy with the shading I took my eraser and erased the highlights to make them “pop.” I also erased a little on the right side of the can to better match the shading of the can. I added the shadow at the bottom and filled in the background with the charcoal pencil and also a soft compressed charcoal.

I learned that there’s a delicate balance when shading for monochrome pieces. Since you are working with only one color you really have to pay attention to the different values in the color to get the right look and feel as though it were a full color piece. Because dark colors all look black or light colors all look light gray (even though the can I was using had red, blue and a light cream color).

It’s also very important not to confuse the shadowed areas from the “colored” areas and also applying shadow to the “colored” areas. There’s a true art in getting the values and tones just right so that the audience can imagine a monochrome piece as being rendered in full color. I hope I’ve achieved that with this drawing.