The Secrets to Drawing: Basic Drawing Techniques

JOIN THE VIRTUAL INSTRUCTOR
Get ALL of our courses, ebooks, live lessons, critiques, lesson plans and more today.
START FREE TRIAL
BUY SINGLE COURSE $30
This course features:
5 Hours of Instruction
28 Videos
26 eBooks
30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Lesson Description

A look at basic drawing techniques and suggested media. Concepts covered include medium, hatching, cross hatching, blending, rendering, random lines, and stippling.

Lesson Materials

White drawing paper, soft graphite, eraser, blending stump, paper towel, drawing pens (ink).

Lesson Resources

Distributing any content downloaded from this site is strictly prohibited and against the terms and conditions of use.

Download eBook

Course Curriculum

Lesson 1: Introduction (5:03)Lesson 2: Line (14:25)Lesson 3: Shape (8:19)Lesson 4: Form (13:00)Lesson 5: Value (11:59)Lesson 6: Space (6:13)Lesson 7: One Point Perspective (12:58)Lesson 8: Two Point Perspective (12:13)Lesson 9: Three Point Perspective (10:27)Lesson 10: Basic Drawing Techniques (15:03)Lesson 11: Drawing From Life (9:01)Lesson 12: Drawing From Photos (15:25)Lesson 13: Composition (12:20)Lesson 14: Graphite (9:00)Lesson 15: Charcoal (10:32)Lesson 16: Ink (9:00)Lesson 17: Color (14:28)Lesson 18: Colored Pencils (11:56) Lesson 19: Oil Pastels (11:51)Lesson 20: Soft Pastels (11:21)Lesson 21: Facial Proportions (13:56)Lesson 22: The Eye (14:05)Lesson 23: The Nose and Mouth (12:24)Lesson 24: The Ear (4:51)Lesson 25: Hair (14:02)Lesson 26: Figure Drawing (20:00)Lesson 27: Foreshortening (12:54)Lesson 28: Conclusion (2:58)

Lesson Discussion

  1. I love the way each one sets a different mood. While blending looks the most realistic, hatching makes a clean finish, and stippling looks old-timer style.

  2. Great video. Suggest you show your drawing technique in real time, although short. Hard to see your stroke style in the rapid frame version. Also give us an idea of how long it takes to do the image. And love the jazz! Are you sitting or standing at an easel? Thanks.

  3. I agree with Alfred. If you could do just a part of each technique in real time it would be easier to understand, esp. for a technique such as stippling. I saw the end result, but am not really sure how to reproduce that! The video was very informative in any case! Thanks much!

  4. really long my arm is killing me and there is eraser stuff un the keyboard, but I still loved the video! my mom didn’t think I was putting a lot of effort into this, but I can’t wait for her to see these five drawings thanks so much!

  7. Great tutorial. I’ve never tried rendering, but I think I would really like that one. I wish I would have learned all of this earlier! Awesome Job Matt.

    Nick

  8. I’m on doing this course Matt and before I used to be able to view on my phone sideways so it fills all my phones screen but now its not, it’s just a small square in middle of my screen, it automatically goes to full screen but can only view it vertically!!!!

  12. I am unable to watch with the sound on because of the background music added in. Previous videos did not have this. (I have brain injury and can’t filter out voice from other sounds, so it is all a muddle). Do most videos have background music added in?

  14. Matt, I love the clear presentation and your videos. However, as this video is about drawing technique, can you post another tutorial or a slowed down version of this showing the pencil motion for these techniques? Other people have requested the same as well.

    Thanks!

  15. Same here, because of the high speed, a lot of frames are cut out, causing the strokes to appear on the image just by hovering the pencil over it, this is not very useful to learn from.
    A recording at normal speed is required here.

  16. Hi Matt,

    I have to agree, rendering just blew my mind away! For me, it’s like taking a picture and pulling it inside out 🙂 Anyways, I was wondering, where can I find that eraser pencil you’re using for the rendering? Not sure where I could find one with a fine point like that. Any suggestions?

    Thanks a lot!

  18. matt,
    1.is it okay to turn the drawing pad around to get consistent “hatching” marks?Is there anything wrong with doing this?
    2.do you think that as one get more practice-skill-confidence, the marks will be more consistent smoother??
    3.do you think this will avoid having to rotate the pad around….? do professional artist do this? do you think the great artist/masters
    rotated their papers,canvas around?
    thanks,raquel

    • Hi Raquel,

      Thanks for the questions.

      1. No, absolutely not. Draw in the most comfortable position always.
      2. Absolutely. Greater control is the result of experience.
      3. Yes. It is perfectly acceptable to rotate your surface. It doesn’t matter how anyone else does it. It only matters what works best for you!

  19. Matt, thank you I learned a lot from this video. I did not know about rendering. I love it. I believe there was a question n where to get the eraser pencils. Amazon has them. Thank you again for these courses I love them. Sharon

  22. I’m very impressed with the entire site, particularly the structure of the curriculum and the progression.The quality of the teaching is excellent and I really enjoy these courses. However, in this video the background jazz music is very disturbing, so may I suggest you remove it?

    • Hi Anna,

      The music is part of the video and cannot be removed. Some of the videos have music and some don’t. Some people will like some of the music selections and some people won’t.

  23. Would you say rendering is akin to a negative space drawing? If not, would you do more on negative space because that is an underrated style in my opinion. Thanks for helping us get through the quarantine. Be safe.

    • Hi Rick,

      While you may erase some negative space using the rendering approach, it is more about removing material to reveal highlights, leaving the shadows in place.

  24. Hi Matt
    Joined last week. Just had the urge to draw in colour pencil shortly after the death of one of my children and it has been a calming experience helping me cope. Hhowever I’m aving trouble seeing the sketches as they are so light. Do you post the sketches anywhere separately? Love the course ..judy

    • Hi Judy,

      So sorry to hear about your loss. No, the drawings are created so that the end result is successful. This sometimes means that the preliminary drawings are light.

Add to the discussion...