Aquarell crosshatching: shade a sphere without a solid fill

Hatching creates tone through the proportion of paper color to line coverage. Denser lines look darker from a distance, and a second set crossing the same area darkens it further. Use one dark color for this sphere and set color choices aside, concentrating on how lines turn around the surface. Aim for a sphere with light, midtone, and cast shadow rather than a uniformly gray circle.

Prepare the canvas and a fine brush

Create a 1200×1200 pixel canvas in the gallery. Keep the bottom layer white, add a practice layer, and another for the cast shadow. Choose a brush with clear edges and controllable width, then set its size to about 5 pixels and opacity to 100%. If editing a preset in Brush Studio, use “Apply” at the bottom; simply closing the panel may discard the adjustments.

First draw five short test lines at the canvas edge. Confirm that they are neither visibly separated dots nor broad bands made by a single stroke. Pressure sensitivity is unnecessary; consistent line width makes density easier to compare. If you are unfamiliar with brush settings, first see Size and opacity exercise, then return here when finished.

Establish the light source with a very faint outline

Place a circle about 620 pixels in diameter near the center, with its bottom around 260 pixels above the canvas edge. Slight hand-drawn variations are fine; focus on naturally connected curves. Put the sketch on a separate layer and lower its opacity so it serves only as a guide. Avoid outlining the complete circle in heavy black at the start, which would make the edge dominate the interior.

Place the light at the upper left and lightly mark the light-shadow boundary on the lower right. It is a curve, not a straight cut through the center. Reserve about the upper-left quarter for the lightest area and roughly the lower-right third for shadow. Estimate the cast shadow extending down and right with a flattened ellipse. Every added line should follow the same light source rather than filling any blank area with black.

Curve the first set of lines around the sphere

Begin in the middle-tone area with short curves bending down and right. Make each about 100 to 180 pixels long, spaced 15 to 20 pixels apart, and spread them farther apart toward the light. These are starting values: halving the canvas also requires reducing width and spacing. Stagger the line endings to avoid a neat brush-like edge.

Zoom out after finishing the first set. It should resemble a light gray veil with plenty of background visible. If it is too dark already, undo some dense strokes instead of repeatedly patching them with white. The light area may need only two or three faint hints, or no lines at all. Volume comes from the relationship between gray areas and empty space; every part need not contain a mark.

Keep the second crosshatched set within the shadow

Add a second set of curves only in the lower-right shadow, crossing the first at about forty-five degrees. Do not spread them over the entire sphere, which would darken everything and erase the established tonal structure. Near the light-shadow boundary, reduce spacing to about 8 to 10 pixels; loosen it toward the edge, retaining a narrow reflected-light area.

The intersections need not align individually. An irregular mesh of lines describes a rounded surface more naturally than a regular grid. Use a third direction only in the darkest spots rather than adding directions endlessly. If the shadow already resembles a black disk, stop and check whether the curves are too straight. Fewer lines following the surface's turns are usually more effective than more disorganized lines.

Use the cast shadow to set the sphere on a table

Switch to the cast-shadow layer and draw a flattened shadow toward the lower right with fairly straight horizontal lines. The contact near the sphere's base should be darkest, with spacing around 5 to 8 pixels, gradually widening outward to 20 pixels. There is no need to outline the shadow with a closed line; unevenly ended short strokes can suggest its edge. Keep only a short dark contact beneath the sphere rather than making the whole bottom edge equally black.

Hide and show the cast-shadow layer to see whether the sphere changes from floating on the page to resting on a table. If the difference is small, the contact may be unclear or the shadow too far away. Do not darken the entire shadow; add a few short lines only at the contact. This also demonstrates the difference between Layer opacity and line density: the former fades everything together, while the latter retains the rhythm between lines and gaps.

Check at a smaller size and address two common problems

At completion, view the work near thumbnail size: the upper left should be lightest, the middle should have tonal transitions, the lower right concentrated darkness, and the cast shadow a consistent direction. Enlarge it again to look for accidental long straight lines crossing the sphere. Hide brush tests and the sketch before export, retain the editable original, and later apply the same hatching method to a cylinder or pear.

Why do fine lines become blurry when the image is reduced? When fine lines become closer than the output can resolve, they merge into gray. That is not necessarily wrong, but if the lines need to remain visible, reduce density or increase final output dimensions instead of repeatedly sharpening. Check at the final display size before choosing line width.

Can I practice without a pressure-sensitive stylus? Yes. This exercise mainly changes spacing, direction, and the number of overlapping sets, so a finger can do it. Pressure variation is not required. If lines wobble noticeably, shorten each stroke and join segments, but avoid repeatedly scrubbing the same place with many short strokes.

Sources and applicable version

Based on Aquarell App Store description and the available brush and layer controls. The public version checked on October 23, 2026 was 1.0.5. Dimensions and spacing are exercise suggestions, and the interface may change by version. Hatching is drawn manually rather than produced by an automatic sketch filter.