What is stippling?

Stippling is when you use tiny dots to make pictures look shaded or detailed.

Imagine you're coloring a picture with only pebbles, and each pebble is one dot. If you put lots of pebbles close together, it looks like a darker area, kind of like how shadows feel deeper under your blanket at night. If you spread them out, it feels lighter, like the part of your blanket that’s in the sun.

Stippling uses dots to show different levels of light and dark. Each dot is like a little lightbulb, and the more dots you use in one place, the brighter or darker that area looks. It's like drawing with pencil dots instead of shading with your hand.

Artists use stippling to make pictures look 3D or realistic, just like how a crayon drawing can look like a photo when you add lots of tiny marks! You could even say it's like making a dot pattern on paper, and when you step back, the picture comes to life.