25 Days to Better Drawings: Drawing in Reverse
This course features:
10 Hours of Instruction
25 Videos
24 eBooks
30 Day Money Back Guarantee
Lesson Description
Create a drawing by concentrating only on the highlights. This challenging drawing exercise forces us to recognize shapes of value and their spatial relationships. In this drawing exercise, we create a portrait drawing with white charcoal on black paper.
Lesson Materials
White charcoal pencil, kneaded eraser, eraser pencil (optional) and black drawing paper.
Lesson Resources
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Course Curriculum
Lesson 1: Materials and Mindset (10:07)Lesson 2: Drawing with Lines (25:29)Lesson 3: Drawing Ellipses (18:26)Lesson 4: Drawing with Shapes (15:56)Lesson 5: Line Quality (13:10)Lesson 6: Cross Contour Lines (11:32)Lesson 7: Shading with Line (38:49)Lesson 8: Value (10:52)Lesson 9: Light and Shadow (11:58)Lesson 10: Drawing Basic Forms (17:25)Lesson 11: Drawing with Forms (21:12)Lesson 12: Texture Study #1 (28:54)Lesson 13: Texture Study #2 (49:20)Lesson 14: Texture Study #3 (17:31)Lesson 15: The Illusion of Space (16:33)Lesson 16: One Point Perspective (46:39)Lesson 17: Two Point Perspective (48:35)Lesson 18: Three Point Perspective (54:30)
Lesson 19: Sighting, Measuring, and Mapping (10:02)Lesson 20: Positive and Negative Space (8:13)Lesson 21: The Grid Technique (11:07)Lesson 22: Basic Facial Proportions (41:52)Lesson 23: Figure Drawing (1:03:53)Lesson 24: Drawing in Reverse (16:29)Lesson 25: Conclusion / Final Exercise (3:56)
Wow. That exercise was both challenging and a lot of fun. I’m just curious… is there a trick to sharpening the charcoal pencil? I used a handheld sharpener (the less than a dollar kind). Each time I came close to having a point the charcoal would break. My tip was a bit flat as I did the exercise.
Thanks so much for this series of lessons.
I use one of those hobby retractable cutting knife like X-acto to sharpen my pencils.
Matt can you use black gesso on multimedia paper to ‘create’ the black black paper required for this exercise?
Hi Diane,
You can definitely do this. The texture of the paper will be a little different though and that will affect the marks.
super thanks
Magical, this lessen, in the beginning I thought o my god, and then the magic happens when it fall in place. Loved this course. Thanks Matt!
Wonderful lesson, wonderful course. After tomorrow’s session, I’m going to sign up for the full shebang. I love your instruction. Thank you, Matt.
Whoa, that was interesting. My drawing doesn’t look much like the reference, and certainly nowhere near as nuanced and detailed as yours, but it does look like a face and I get the general idea. Fun! I agree with Brandy, some pencil-sharpening tips would be great!
Also a question about blending stumps: do you use new and fresh ones each time or is there some way of cleaning and reusing them?
Hi Matt, I had some knowledge of drawing but your course is outstanding. Since I am kind of designated to sitting with my mother, I went through your course and practiced constantly. This lesson was challenging. My problem was when I used fixative to save the drawing, it got lighter and some parts nearly disappeared.
Matt, I loved this exercise. First time using reverse. Could we have a course to learn and practice more drawing in reverse? Thank you.
Wow Matt, what a wonderful exercise. I love such pictures and I am looking forward to try this reverse drawing myself. It’s adorable your finished picture, there’s almost no difference between your picture and the photo reference. Great work.
Reverse drawing is fab loved it ! The whole course has been an amazing experience! I’ve taken up the upgrade today so that I can continue to do these lessons! I can not wait to get into some of the other courses. When you do live sketching sessions is it possible to put the uk time too !
You are the best teacher of Art I’ve come across. Tomorrow’s lesson will be interesting to see how I’ve come on ! Thank you Matt ! Looking forward to it.
Jan
Does anyone know of a program to make photos to help aid in the process? I have photoshop express but not familiar with how to get a standard color pic to have such contrast. Thanks
I found this exercise incredibly difficult. It was difficult to get the level of detail from the photo as it was too small. I found myself copying the detail from your drawing as I simply was unable to see it in the photo.
Enjoyed this immensely. I never looked at it like reverse drawing. But I do love using black paper & white charcoal. Love the effects. Thanks Matt
My blending tools are all black on the tips.
Do you know how to get rid of that?
You could use sandpaper. I use a medium coarse to get rid of the black and then a smoother coarse to just smooth it a bit.
Drawing faces and “reverse drawing” have certainly never been my strong suit. But oh my gosh, Matt, was I surprised when I finished this exercise! You are just the best art instructor I’ve ever had. I’ve learned more from this class and you than all my other drawing classes combined. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
I’m moving to the colored pencil course when I finish the last lesson.
What a great exercise! I was so surprised how well it turned out. Thanks for giving us just the right amount of guidance. I found myself just listening to your comments and focusing on my drawing rather than looking at your drawing. I glanced here and there but otherwise I tried to “observe”. It is tricky but kinda fun!
Issues with sharpening. Do you have a sharpening video?
Loved this lesson!!! White charcoal on black paper is something I have never attempted before and I love the results!