What is cross hatching? Well, when you draw with black ink on a sheet of white
paper all you can ever hope to achieve is a black-and-white drawing.
So hatching is a simple method of using parallel lines to build up areas that
trick the eye into seeing tone. You can think of tone in this case as shades of
grey. Cross-hatching is when you add another layer of hatching in a different
direction and this increases the tonal value, or it makes a darker shade of gray,
and adds variation to what is still a black-and-white Drawing. By adding more
layers in different directions you get the effect of darker tones or shades.
Cross hatching is particularly useful when trying to give the effect of graduated
shade which we used to have a feeling of depth or 3Dness to a drawing is still
just a black-and-white drawing but cross-hatching tricks the eye into
thinking there are different shades and gives a feeling of shape too.
Now generally to do pen-and-ink work it's good to pencil out lightly what it
is that you're trying to draw so let's make a cube. Start with that
diamond shape up at the top, and then draw it like that. And then the light
will be coming from this direction, so I'm going to have the shadows forming
something like that.
Basically I've just got to draw lots of lines from top to bottom and what you
really want is to get these nice and even and parallel - evenly spaced apart. And
that takes practice and concentration.
It's very easy to get bored and start scribbling. So that's one surface done
and now I'm going to go back up the other way... If you love drawing, then make
sure that you press that subscribe button and subscribe to the Shoo Rayner
Drawing Channel for lots more drawing videos every week. And you can see I'm
kind of rushing it a little bit because I'm not really thinking about what I'm
doing I'm thinking about is it in the camera, and all sorts of other things,
and to get it really, really right you need to really concentrate.Now we need
to add an extra tone to it so we're going to cross hatch this way.
Hey! if you're enjoying this video please click the like button and share it with
your friends and if you've got any comments or questions do put them in the
comments box below. Draw in those back lines. So there's no giving us a cube
and then to really put it on the table, then we'll put some shadow in and we'll
make this another darker tone again. So that's a layer of hatching and now i'm
going to put in cross-hatching
and i'm going to add another layer which will cross over again, at the third angle.
And that's a pretty good differentiation of shape. But I'm going to do yet another
I'm going across this way this time now this will make it even darker. Cross
hatching is a skill and to get better at it you need to practice every day it's
just like to do your handwriting when you were young kid. So what you can do is
just practice doing boxes and practice carefully and you'll probably be quite slow
to start off with and the more you do it the faster you'll get. Practice doing
little boxes and keeping these spaces evenly distributed, which I'm having
difficulty with now because I'm talking at the same time and not concentrating,
then, cross hatch and - see I missed that bit there! - practice going from one line
to another and really getting it exactly right. Since I start talking I lose
my concentration
I don't quite it right. And then cross hatch in another direction and just get
this thing - practiced at doing different angles, different spaces Aww! you see?
talking and not concentrating, so I'm going to start this way this time (hah!)
and then the other way as well. If you're doing pure black-and-white illustrations
then just keep practicing and practicing like this and then also practice getting
those lines closer and closer and closer, and get this real pen control - get those
lines very very close.
It's not easy to really does take practice. My instinctive style when I'm
drawing is actually to do that's much more scribbly kind of cross hatching
like that, but then you know it's it's takien me a long time to build up my
particular style, and i tend to use watercolor over-the-top for extra shade
and tonal values so practice doing lots and and lots and
lots these little things and you will build up this kind of muscle memory
it's just like llearning to play violin or being a gymnastic or anything else - soccer
player - you need to practice these fine motor coordination movements and
they will get better and better and better until you become a master at
cross-hatching. Thanks for watching and you'll find that I've made a playlist
with videos that I've made which incorporate cross-hatching and you can
learn all sorts of things from that. Go and have a look
Well thanks for watching and to make sure that you are subscribed to the Shoo
Rayner Drawing channel here on YouTube for lots more drawing videos all the time and
In the meantime...
keep drawing, drawing, drawing. Practice practice, practice, and I'll see you next
time. You take care now... bye, bye.