Matt Brehm

Sketching Essentials in Graphite

Matt Brehm
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Meet Matt Brehm, your guide to getting started sketching. After learning how your posture and position affect your sketch, you'll warm up with some basic mark making. Learn to draw relatively straight lines and fluid curved lines. Then, use hatching to add lightness and darkness to your sketch.
Creating an effective drawing starts with a plan. In this lesson, you'll learn to make decisions about what to draw, how much of a scene to include and how big your drawing should be. Then, make a plan to ensure your scene will fit on the page.
In this lesson, you'll explore how your brain interprets what you see and how that can impact your drawing. Learn to use pencil sighting for accurate proportions and angles in your sketch. And, find out how to use sight sizing to help check your progress as you lay in the guidelines for your sketch.
Next, flesh out your major guidelines to include more detail in your drawing. Use guidelines to simplify how you capture repetitive elements such as windows and arches. And apply all of what you've learned to non-architectural forms by sketching objects from nature.
Add depth to your sketch by beginning to incorporate value. In this lesson, you'll learn to differentiate color and value in your scene, and you'll use the angle and pressure of your pencil to control value. Plus, you'll use hatching in perspective to create a realistic sense of space.
Finally, bring your scene to life by adding context to your sketch with the entourage -- details beyond buildings. We'll start by incorporating people into our scene to create a sense of scale and activity. Then, we'll capture landscape elements and finally cars.
 
 
6 Lessons
2  hrs

Description

Learn sketching basics with step-by-step lessons from Urban Sketchers instructor and blog correspondent Matt Brehm. Open up your sketchbook and get started with tips for drawing straighter lines and fluid curves. If you get overwhelmed by sketching on location, have no fear! Matt will help you reduce sketching stress by planning what to draw, what to crop out and how large your final drawing should be. With your plan in place, learn basic pencil-sighting and sight-sizing techniques for more accurate proportions and angles. Then, get comfortable drawing repetitive elements such as windows and arches. Think adding depth to your drawing has to be intimidating? Find out how to take control of value and add dimension by hatching in perspective. Matt will even guide you through drawing people, landscape elements and more to bring your sketchbooks to life.

Matt Brehm

Since 2000, Matt Brehm has been a professor of architecture with a focus on freehand sketching. In 2010, he was honored with the Hoffman Award for Teaching Excellence, which is given to a single professor each year at the University of Idaho. Brehm is also the author of Sketching on Location as well as a workshop instructor at five of the Urban Sketchers' international symposia.

Matt Brehm

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