Matthew | Drawing Tutorials Online Blog

Blending Shadow Shapes With a Brush

by Matthew | Mar 14, 2019 | Drawing Tutorials, The Blog | 15 comments

This short drawing tutorial will teach you how to blend pencil with a bristle brush. By using various types of bristle brushes you can really blend shadow shapes in a soft realistic way.

Sometimes when we use a blending stump things can get a bit over blended. Blending stumps tend to make your drawings look a bit heavy handed when over used.

In this particular drawing lesson the brush really helped me to push the pencil into the texture/tooth of the paper. By implementing this same technique you will be able to model form in a realistic way.

I encourage you to try this technique. The brushes do not need to be expensive, in this case the cheaper the better.

Let me know what you though about this technique. I find it works really well in speeding up the drawing process. Especially when working with an old school pencil on regular drawing paper.

The complete lesson will be posted on Drawing Tutorials Online later this month.

Isaac Levitan Sketches – Master Class

by Matthew | Mar 2, 2019 | MasterClass, The Blog

I wanted to take a moment to share part of a Master Class lesson featuring the sketches of Isaac Levitan. As you know I am a big fan of landscape painting. Most likely because most of my past illustrations had a landscape in the background.

I usually painted a portrait on the book cover of the main character with a landscape as the back drop.

This particular video below analyzes how Isaac Levitan takes his viewers on a journey though his landscape sketch. He almost always takes the viewer on a journey through his scene via a lead in of some sort. In this case it’s the footprints in the snow.

He then uses contrast in tandem with hard edges to lead the viewer to various parts of the landscape sketch. Levitan uses a nice compliment of hard and soft edges to control where the viewer looks first second and third. He also uses a balance of hard and soft edges to create a foreground and background.

Lastly Levitan certainly understood the power of shape. A lot of artists get too caught up with texture leaving powerful shapes out of their landscape sketches. Do your best to use a light, middle tone and dark shape somewhere in your scene.

The next time you set out to compose a landscape use all of these techniques to your advantage. Use contrast, edges, as well as shape to take the viewer of your imagery through a cool little journey.

To see our of our Master Class videos consider a membership to Drawing Tutorials Online. Thanks so much for taking the time to check out this lesson.

Drawing Facial Features In An Impressionistic Way

by Matthew | Feb 23, 2019 | Drawing Tutorials, The Blog | 5 comments

Drawing a small head on a figure it can be pretty daunting. However when it comes to drawing facial features that are mainly on the shadow side of the head, that can be even more daunting.

The key to drawing facial features that are mainly on the shadow side of the face is to draw them in an impressionistic way. I’m a big believer of drawing shadow shapes, not facial features. Think of them as one in the same. Getting a likeness is about seeing the shadow shapes within the features, then drawing them accurately.

You also want to think and draw in layers. Start off with blocking in light tone. Feel your way through the facial features with very soft light tone. This is where you want to practice your light touch. Diving into drawing the features with heavy dark tone at first will only create a mess.

Especially if you are struggling with measurements.

There are three key takeaways from this lesson. First, work from light to dark when applying tone. Second, don’t draw facial features, draw soft accurate shadow shapes. Third, think layers, build up the dark tone and detail gradually.

These initial soft layers of tone are a foundation for the detail that will come later.

To watch the course in it’s entirety consider a membership to Drawing Tutorials Online. Not only will you learn many new drawing techniques, you can also get your figure drawings critiqued weekly.

Four Ways To Promote Form

by Matthew | Feb 19, 2019 | Video Critiques | 1 comment

In this video critique of the week we help out Hillary with her life drawing. To quote Hillary, I was going for a precise likeness by searching for shadow shapes, but once the drawing looked like her, I didn’t know how to develop the forms.

To be specific there are four ways to promote the three dimensional form of the head.

First you have to use multiple pencil strokes directions. You can use a straight up and down pencil stroke to block in tone quickly. You can also use a diagonal stoke to do this as well. However what works best in promoting form is layering form lines on top of the already established tone.

If you just block in tone in essence you are using flat graphic shapes. Adding into the mix curved form lines will create three dimension.

Second, you will definitely want to incorporate convex lines that wrap around the form of the head starting from the contour line. Without the use of convex line your contour line will add to flat graphic look of your drawing.

Third, look for value shifts. For every different value on the head and face there is a different surface plane. Light hits form and that form comes in the way of surface planes.

Fourth, use the modeling factors when possible. For those of you who have been with Drawing Tutorials Online for a while I’ve been teaching the modeling factors for years. It’s a way of shading that enables you to turn objects from the light into the shadow via a gradation.

Of course you have to pick and choose your battles when you are completing a life drawing that goes for roughly three hours. Three hours really is not that long of a time to use all of these techniques in a complete way. However even using them partially will most certainly promote form.

Thank you so much for reading this post. If you are interested in getting your artwork critiqued in a kind and informative way, consider a membership to Drawing Tutorials Online.

We post up member critiques every Monday afternoon. Thanks Hillary for sharing your work.

Coe’s Sketchbook – Beautiful Line Quality

by Matthew | Feb 16, 2019 | Sketchbook Videos, The Blog | 2 comments

Coe is a student currently enrolled in my foundation drawing class at the School of Visual Arts. I’ve always been a big fan of Coe’s life drawings in class since very early on in the semester. When they had agreed to film a sketchbook video I was super excited.

Coe’s Sketchbook drawings really inspire me, specifically their line drawings of birds and other animals. The line used to draw birds is spectacular and only improving with each passing week.

Coe works is really unique and authentic. Coe thank you so much for sharing your art!