Hi, I'm Steve Huston. Welcome to New Masters Academy. This is
our course for beginners, welcome aboard. If you've never
drawn before, never painted, never done any real art at all
maybe except some grade school craft classes. This is going to
be a good course for you. It's going to be a terrific course,
actually, we've got all sorts of information to give you and
it's going to come out in a slow easy process that you can
absorb, we'll give you a pacing to it, we'll give you exercises,
plenty of demonstrations. We've got artists that have
done almost everything there is to do an art, every teacher here
is terrific, they're enthusiastic, they're grateful that you've
joined them. They love talking about their favorite subject as
I do too. If you want to eventually be a fine artist, if
you want to be an illustrator, if you want to be in animation,
in comic books, and whatever else is out there to be as an
artist or we have someone who's done that and often times many
of those things. So they not only know the craft of art,
they'll know the job of being an artist and can help you
through that process not only in this beginners course, but
as you get proficient here, you can move on into our more
advanced courses and we've got literally hundreds of hours to
to offer you. It's in every, genre every medium. Lots of
fun here. There's a lifetime of learning to be had here. And
that's the wonderful thing about art. You don't become an
old man like a sports star does at 35, you can do this until
you're 95. And that's my plans. So anyway, welcome
aboard. I hope you enjoy this journey we have and before we
get into some of the nuts and bolts about the course, I want
to talk about art itself and the kind of the why of art.
Art's really just an idea and when I think of an artist, I
think of somebody who has an idea about the world. You look
out there and you say I see beautiful colors and I'm going
to paint that idea about the world. I see beautiful shapes.
I'm going to capture those shapes on a canvas or on paper
and that will be how I talk about the world. And the
interesting thing about this idea, it's not just any idea
it's meaningful. And that's my feelings, one of the reasons I
started art, although I don't think I could have articulated
at the time and it's certainly one of the reasons I stay in it
and teach it because I think art, like very few things in
life, gives meaning to life. We need to have some kind of
purpose. And so when I strategize about how to live a
good life, I realized that art gives me something very few
things give me. It gives me a chance
to not only have something that I love and enjoy, something
that's potentially meaningful, but I can pass that on to other
people and that might sound like a little high-spirited
there, but just think about it. When you go to a theater or you
walk into a gallery with art or you open a novel or you turn on
the music, go into that theater, what are you hoping for when
you go into that theater? You're hoping you find artwork
that's more beautiful, more magical, more spiritual, more
deeper than you ever seen before. You actually hope that
artist is doing something that will change your life. When you
go into that theater you watch that movie hoping or you listen
to that play hoping that by the end of that story it will have
changed your life. We're looking for things that give
us grounded meaning, not just diversions. We can have more
people like our social media page, we can get a brand new
car, we can make more money. It's not going to make us
happier. The real Joy comes from a sense of meaning, a sense
of connection. So think about it. We've got me here and the
world around me. I'm in this body, you're out someplace past
that camera lens. We feel so often disconnected. Art's a way
of connecting back. In fact, one of the ways we think about
art in New Masters Academy is a fact that we have the
different parts of the body or the parts of the still life and
then the art is how those parts come together. The still life
is not six peaches and a pear. It's one still life. The story
is in a bunch of disconnected characters and disconnected
scenes, it's one story line. It's not a bunch of notes, it's
one Melody. It's not in a bunch of dance steps, it's one dance.
Art is the connective tissue of its form and so if we can get
not a color but all the colors to connect together, to work
together they're harmonious and we've built every art form we
have as a humanity as a civilization in this connective
way. This binary way of taking the separate part and bringing
it back into the whole and we've done that in art because that's
our experience and that's our deepest wish in life. I really
believe it, that we feel disconnected when we're not happy
and we feel connected when we are happy, when we are joyous,
when we have meaning. So how we fit - so art is working with
these deep roots, these deep powers here that can really add
pleasure to your life. And it's one of the few things in life
that if you do, if I take my paintings, if I
get these little framed characters and I put 30 of them
in a gallery,
almost every single person in there, if not, every single
person is going to walk through that is those doors hoping I
created 30 masterpieces. Now how often in life does that
happen where everybody around you wants you to succeed? They
desperately need you to succeed. They want to walk in
and find paintings that are so amazing it changes their life.
They want to come out of that theater having seen a story
that is so amazing it changes their life. It gives them
meaning, it shows them a way through the difficult times. It
shows them that when life is tough it's going to
get better.
That's what art does for us.
So what we're after is that connective tissue. What art
does is the connecting tissue. We're going to talk about
shapes, how to get all of those separate lines to build a shape,
all the separate shapes to build a form, all the separate
forms to create a composition. That's art, that's life. Every
art form works on that binary system of the parts
in relationship to the whole because that's our experience
of life. We are a part separated from the whole and we spend
most of our time trying to connect back to that. So that's
what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with something
that's fun and enjoyable and a craft and has a set of skills
to be learned but it's something deeper, it's something
that moves from here to here and when it gets down here,
there's just nothing like it frankly. So here's the thing
though. That's the good news in a way. That's the exciting
kind of pump you up, get you ready for the course kind of
transformation. Here's the problem though. I've met a lot of
people I'm sixty years old. I've been doing this for 40 plus
years. I've stayed in at all that time because I love it.
But I've seen so many people leave the art or never begin to
do art because it's been too hard, they've been too hard on
themselves. And so what we need to do is find a way that
art isn't only something that we can create masterful work
with but we can also take the pressure off ourselves so that
when we are going through the process, especially when we're
just beginning that it's enjoyable that we have fun. And
we don't talk ourselves out of it. We want to do something for
our self that is kind and sympathetic. In other words we
want a strategy to make art fun. And hopefully the course
will be fun for you. But what I want you to do is think about a
couple things and I'm gonna give you an example here.
In - and there's been - we're in interesting times because
we've learned so much about the past and we know so much about
the present and we know a lot about how the brain works and
the body works and the brain is an interesting thing. For
example, if we look at meditation, meditation you
quiet things down you don't necessarily lock out all the
thoughts, but you quiet yourself down in some way and
when you get into that quiet place, your brain waves change. They go
from the beta, which is waking, what's going to get me, what do
I have to do, to the alpha where you're in a calm state. It's
the same wave pattern that kicks in right before we
fall asleep, when we relax out and things get easy and we kind
of forget the cares and then we start to slowly drift away. So
when we meditate well and correctly we get into
what's called alpha states. When you can get into that alpha
state, that meditative quiet state the ego, the brain, the
monkey brain they call it. Sometimes the chatter stuff
doesn't go away. It slows down and you're not as self-critical
and you can relax, your breathing changes, often times
you get into that alpha state and you'll see the breathing's
changed. You'll see it sometimes with the instructors when
they're doing a demo all sudden, they'll go
Ahhh and you'll kind of feel the relaxation and that stress goes
away and their conscious mind
moves back a step and then the unconscious kicks in there and
they get into this flow and things start moving and even if
they're talking they can be talking to you and still it'll
come through and you're in this lovely place and all of a
sudden you can - the control room in the demo will say, okay, and in the demo will say, okay,
that's a wrap we got to stop we've done it for two
hours and you go wait I thought that was 15 minutes. So
the same sense of release of stress, relaxation, breathing
change, loss of time, disconnection to time that you
get in meditation, guess what you get all those things in art
too. You get to that place where you relax out. So what we're
going to want to do is try and get to that alpha state. Well,
We'll have you do that. What we really want to do is make sure
that we're relaxing.
They were relaxing out and breathing.
Okay. So in a way in meditation breathing is the key and that
can be the key to move into a place in art where you're relaxed
and things, you get into that flow as they call it, all that
good stuff that happens there. Problem is how do you get in
that? The real problem is we're oftentimes way too hard on
ourselves and that's whenever I've seen people abandoned art,
whether it's a career or a hobby, a class, it's because
they're too hard on themselves because they can't get past
that critical, that monkey mind that chatters, it goes after
you. So what we want to do is come up with a strategy that we
can kind of trick ourselves into being in the right frame
of mind and it's not that hard actually and I'll explain how
so here's the problem. Here's what we're up against. here's what we're up against.
There's a lot of things that work against us in this but
they're
manageable.
Psychology tells us now that 85 percent of the population came
from a dysfunctional family. You have something in your past
that's baggage, that works against you, that subverts you
and relationships or jobs or health or whatever it is.
You've got some baggage there that wounds.
It's a wound that hasn't healed that gives us
trouble. That's one of the reasons we're hard on ourselves
because maybe other people were hard on ourselves, whatever
that adds up to.
Not only that, 90% of us if we feel joy, 90% of the people who
feel joy, I got a new job, I really drew a great sphere that
time look at my little child ride a bicycle for the first
time. When they have that joy, that great feeling of joy, 90%
of them immediately go into a fear response and say, oh he's
riding the bicycle, but what if he gets hit by a car, I
got the job but what if they fire me next week because I
realize I'm a fraud. I'm not really as good as my resume
suggest and we start to undermine and we start to break
it down, break down that joy into fear to prepare ourselves
so that we're not so devastated when it does fall apart. That's
the strategy. It's a survival strategy. Don't be too happy
because then it'll be taken away from you. So that's the problem
we have. So 85% of the time we start with some damaged goods.
The damaged background, so we're not working at full
efficiency here for our creative, happy, joyous selves and
90% of the time when we are creative, happy, joyous selves
we undermine that. So what are we going to do to fix that?
Well, we can convince our brain of all sorts of things, what
that means is for the good and the bad is when we have
something horrible that happens to us and we think about it
our body thinks, our brain thinks it's happening again. If
we imagine that boss yelling at us, that car that almost hit us
because it ran the red light, we go through those same stress
responses again and again and again you had, you sweat, your
heart beats palpitations all that kind of stuff, dry mouth,
all those same things can and will kick in and so when we get
in that pattern of stress we again and again and again go
back to that same thing and go that way. There's a that go that way. There's a
standard it makes us unhappy, can make us sick, meditation is
one of the things that helps that, art is one of the things
that helps that. So how do we flip it? How do we trick it in
such a way that we can get our natural our imagination where
our brain believes it's real? It doesn't know the difference,
it sends the same signals of the body, the body puts out the
same adrenaline hormone, dopamine, whatever it is, good
and bad stuff that kicks in what we want to do then is have
a strategy. We're making that system work for us rather
than work against us. And here's how we're going to do
it. We want to trick our brain into being kinder. We want to
trick ourselves, our ego, into being a nice guy, being a good
friend to our art self. And here's how I do you can you can
come up with your own creative solution, but I'll give you my
solution here because remember my experience here and I would
imagine there's studies out there, but it doesn't matter
the fact is we tend to be too hard on ourselves. Whatever it
is, that diet, I ate a cookie, I'm going to get off the diet
because I'm a loser we tend to be really hard on ourselves.
We're almost never that hard on the people around us or we're
never that hard on our children. We wouldn't say
you're a lousy human being, you're a rotten kid because you
drew the eyes in the wrong place on that little head. You
say, oh honey that's a wonderful drawing and you'd
give this love and support. And then if they wanted it
in somehow, it seemed appropriate you might give them
a little help with it, but probably not, probably it
would just be all love and support for them knowing that
if you support them now at five or six when they get to be 25
or 26 they're going to be terrific and they may have a
love of their life they can continue. So we nurture our
friends, our family, our mates, our co-workers. We tend to are our co-workers. We tend to
be pretty good with people and we tend to be way better with
people than we are to ourselves. So what I've decided
is I'm going to come up when I decided a while ago I'm going
to come up with a way to be kind to myself. So I'm going to
use my vast imagination that we all have, especially we artists,
and I'm going to come up with an image that is going to help
me do it. So what I want you to do, because this is what I do,
but you may come up with something even better, I want
you to think of this new young artist that's about to become
this part of yourself, this little piece of you that's barely
alive. It's just starting to grow inside of you. Maybe I
want you or maybe it's been a while around for a while, but
it hasn't been nurtured so it hasn't grown as much as it
should. I want you to imagine that that little child of you,
that little artist of you, the creative spirit that you are, I
want you to imagine that it's a soul fragment that if you
want it to stay and you want it to grow and nurture and be
powerful, maybe the most powerful part of you, a partner
in your life in some way. I want you to imagine that you're
going to always give it kindness and love and support.
What that means is when you start drawing -
okay, the exercise in this beginning course was to draw
a cylinder. That is a lousy cylinder. That's a lousy
cylinder. That's what we tend to say, that's not nearly as good as
the teacher. If I'm in a classroom it's not near as good
as the classroom and we tend to kind of want to cover it up so
other people don't see it. We're ashamed of ourselves that
we didn't do it better. What I want you to do when that
happens is try to remember that little soul fragment and stop
yourself. And say well it could be better, but it could always
be better.
The teachers could have been better. I've seen better than
what the teacher did. I've seen Michelangelo drawings - I was
looking at some last night - that aren't so good, that are
mistakes that gives me great pleasure actually, the fact that
Michelangelo can do drawings that aren't all that artful all
the time. So that's a good thing. We all - we're not always
doing our best all the time and our best will always be a
changing goal post. It will get the best is here, the best of
it. We'll be up here every day, every year, every month all
along we can get better and better and better. So what I
want to do is I want to say, I want to try and find one thing
that I'm proud of, one thing that I can tell that that
fragile little child, that scared little child inside me
that it's okay and you did great. Just like you would for
your own little child. You don't have to lie, although you
could, but since there's a bigger of you that's this cynical
adult you'll probably catch it by find one thing say, you
know, everybody else was drawing in black. I picked this
orange. That's really beautiful. I love that color.
That was a better choice than what the teacher did or this
one line was a nice clean line. I did a good job on that, last
time both sides were screwed up. So I want you to do that
and find no matter what, find one thing or you say it's a
sketch. Now a sketch is a wonderful word because sketch means
it's practice, you're living as an artist. You can get into
that flow. You can drop into those alpha ways, the
brainwaves, the alpha and the thing about the alpha waves
when you get into that dream state, that meditative
state, that state where you're relaxed and time flows. What
happens is that critical self that would attack this drawing
isn't around, they're not going to attack it or attack it as
quickly and then you have a chance to slip in the nurturing,
the love, love and compassion, slip that in before the
criticism can even get started. So once we start learning to
get in the flow, and we're not quite so tense and tight
because we're having to worry about every step that we're not
quite sure of, then we'll start kicking into those states and
you'll notice that state in yourself when that breath gets
more relaxed and you'll get. Usually for me it's one
big breath and my chest kind of collapses and I can just almost
feel the angst, the stress kind of wash out like a wave. If I
step in the bathtub the waves go away from my legs. The
stress goes away from my body like that. So try and fool
yourself into finding something that's wonderful
because there's something wonderful. It could just be
the drawing didn't turn out as well as I could but
isn't it wonderful that I'm doing this rather than stuck on a
freeway? Isn't it wonderful I'm doing something
for myself, something I've always wanted to try rather
than watching another binge TV show on the network, the reruns
I've already seen before so that's what we're going to try
and do that's what I would suggest you try and do if you
want to get the most out of this and if you want it to be
fun. And the thing about fun, joy, love, compassion the thing about
being grateful for whatever you did, right, or grateful that
you're getting to do this and we are certainly grateful that
you are doing it, the thing about that gratitude any of
the good emotions, the good ones, the love, compassion, gratitude,
forgiveness kind of stuff again studies show that
when you are putting yourself in the place of the good
emotions, the positive emotions, good things happen, the rest of
your day tends to go better, bad incidents don't incidents bad incidents. Don't
show up as much, not putting out the vibe I guess. You're not as
stressed. You're more efficient at work. The one percent, the super
smart, the super successful, the driven to succeed, they use
meditation. And so we're going to do our own artful
meditation. We're in a get into this passionate silence where
we just relax out and receive and we do it and we don't
critique it. We don't pick on it. We love it and hold it and
cherish it and then there can be time later to give it a few
suggestions. Let's get into the course. You're now going into
the New Masters beginning course on drawing and you've
got two wonderful teachers to begin you on that journey.
Heather Lenefsky and Chris Legaspi. So enjoy, draw lots,
have fun. Let us know how you like the course. We'll see you
soon.

Hello, my name is Chris Legaspi.
And I’m Heather Lenefsky.
And welcome to our brand-new Beginner’s Series.
If you’ve never picked up a pencil before, or if you’re a veteran that’s ready to
return and revisit some fundamentals, this is the perfect series for you.
We’re going to begin with our first lesson on materials.
We’re going to cover everything from pencils, erasers, pens, markers, everything you need
to get started drawing.
The pencils are probably what you’re going to be using the most, what I use the most.
Really, what it comes down to is pencils come in really only two forms.
Either some kind of long pencilly thing, usually with wood, or just a stick.
The stick is basically what’s inside without the wood.
Let me start with the most common pencil that you’re probably going to use.
It’s known as graphite.
If you go to an office store and you just buy the pencil, or if you go to a school supply
store, or when you were in school the pencils that your teacher gave you,
those were graphite pencils.
Probably the first pencils you drew with were graphite.
These are the three most common ways you can find, I guess, more artist type graphite.
One is just a good old-fashioned graphite pencil in a stick, and these come in many grades.
By grade I mean hardness.
This is a 6B so it’s fairly soft, gets nice and dark.
We’ll talk about the marks you can make later in this lesson as well.
This is only the graphite inside.
This is no wood.
It’s another creative way you can get graphite.
It’s really fun.
I believe it’s coated with some kind of plastic.
You can just stick it in your sharpener and sharpen it down.
You can get the same exact point and mark.
And this one is one of my favorite tools It’s just an automatic pencil.
It’s something I picked up at the office store.
You basically load it with these little graphite refillable things.
These are other very common things.
You can find these in ordinary office stores.
You just [clicking sound] and you’re good to go.
What I like about these is that you don’t have to sharpen them.
They stay nice and sharp, so they’re great for drawing in your sketchbook.
That’s a quick overview of various types of graphites.
Next, let’s talk about charcoal.
Obviously, charcoal is a little bit more advanced.
These we’ll be using to do your finer drawings, your longer studies, your more advanced drawings.
Charcoal comes in many forms.
The two most common forms are pencil and stick.
Here are sticks.
These are three types of sticks that I have in my box.
One is this really dark compressed charcoal in this flat kind of stick.
These are pretty common to find in the art store.
They get nice and dark and nice and soft.
They make really big broad strokes, broad marks.
These are willows, and they’re a little bit harder.
They come in a couple different sizes.
They’re typically these long skinny sticks and these big old fat sticks.
Usually you buy them and they’re about this long, so I just break them so they’re easier to use.
They basically work the same way as a square stick.
Just a way to make a big, broad mark.
Obviously, the pencil—and this is sharpened down with a razor blade—you can get them
more detailed and finer marks.
Again, charcoal is more for creating more fully value, full, longer-finish drawings,
and they’re very common to find in the art store.
Alright, let’s talk about some other pencils that you might find useful, especially if
you’re going to be transitioning into life drawing and figure drawing and things or going
to workshops.
This is a little different.
This is a Wolff’s Carbon, and this one is what’s called a Conté à Paris.
This one is actually a pastel.
These are very common if you’re going to be practicing a lot of life drawing, a lot
of head drawing.
What I like about them is that they have a nice, strong, sturdy wood so that you can
sharpen it with a long needle like this, a long point.
These are very, very common pencils that you’ll find at the art store when you’re ready
to begin drawing from life or drawing from reference.
These both are black.
This one is earth tone, sort of a reddish-umber earth tone.
Speaking of color, obviously, the colored pencil is another common thing you’ll find.
I love drawing with colored pencil.
This is actually a black colored pencil.
It’s called a Verithin, which is basically a hard colored pencil.
It comes in all kinds of different colors.
But obviously, for drawing I would recommend black and maybe a gray.
This is a colored pencil in an earth tone in orange.
This is a Prismacolor.
This is probably the most common colored pencil and arguably one of the highest quality brands.
These are great.
I like to sharpen them both ends so that I have two points.
Again, if you like drawing and you head to the art store, these would be readily available.
I would recommend picking some of these up, especially a black, a dark, or a gray.
Finally, the last thing we’ll talk about is the pastel.
The pastel is a very, very soft mark.
Pastels are known for coloring.
This is kind of an oily base.
This is very similar to paintings, which is more advanced.
You can have a lot of fun drawing with pastel, with black pastel.
They typically come in sticks.
This is really, really soft.
Again, later they see the kind of mark you can make, but this is great for going really
dark and making big, bold strokes, big bold marks.
Not so much good for detail, at least a big stick like this, but pastel is great if you
want a lot of coverage.
If you want to do big, bold drawings, make big, bold marks, and you want to go dark quickly,
pastel is a great choice.
Again, these are fairly common and easy to find, especially in stick form like this.
Okay, you’ve seen some of the common pencils and drawing materials and drawing tools you’ll
see at the art store when you begin your drawing journey.
Now, Heather is going to show you which one to choose for the type of marks that you want
to make.
Alright, so Chris got us all fired up to start making marks.
You guys have probably already been drawing while you watched that, you could hardly stand it.
We’re looking for what type of tools will give us which type of marks.
If we’re looking at a thinner, sharper kind of line, this would be just a graphite clicky pencil.
You can get a really, really fine tight line.
Another kind of graphite that is going to be very, very similar.
If we want to do like a more kind of tonal line or a thicker line, something where we
want to fill in a greater space at a time, something like a Conté can also give us one
of these tight lines like this.
When you sharpen it, if you want to take it down, you can make the tip also function on
the edge.
So, by preparing it this way, you can draw both on the tip and just take it and get some
tone in really fast.
This helps, too, when you get into sort of a more painterly method.
So, there are two tools in one.
Another one, if you want to take it down just the side like that, Chris using pastel.
That’s just one stroke.
A lot of volume in one swipe.
You may get to a point where you want to, sort of in-between, like an edge that’s
a little bit softer.
You can do that a variety of ways.
This is a graphite but it’s not encased in wood.
It’s sort of similar to that sharpened Conté where this is all active, this edge here.
So, if we wanted to get something kind of fuzzy, we might be able to just kind of take
it from that tip and kind of feather it out a little bit.
This is a general’s, and we can do the same thing when we get into some more of the charcoals.
The other cool thing is, you’ve got your fingers, and you can start finger painting
with a lot of these materials and kind of drag it out a little bit.
The degree of the mark that goes down is going to be relative to the tool you’re using
and also the type of finish on the paper.
If you zoomed in on a microscope, it would look kind of like a spiderweb.
What we’re doing is laying in pigments into that web.
One other note about graphite that’s a little different, the particles of graphite are actually
kind of like flakes or plates.
If you lay in enough graphite, depending on the paper, it actually starts to have more
of a shine to it.
With graphite you can also start much more slowly and get kind of a slow build-up too.
If you’re kind of wanting to be really, really ghosting in, you can also notice the
range of hardness or the range of graphite to clay.
The harder pencils are going to have more clay, and the softer pencils are going to
have more graphite.
And so that way, if you’re just starting off you might want to keep it really light.
You might not want to start laying in these thick tones until you’re getting really,
really confident.
If you know the job you want to do, there are all kinds of tools available.
So, I’m sure you guys never make a mistake.
But even if you don’t, the eraser is a tool in of itself.
I’m just going to lay a little bit of tone tone.
Just taking the Conté, just something to work with.
We can just look at a few different types of eraser marks.
They can be drawing tools as well.
Mine come out a lot in life drawing, more than I’d like.
We’ve got this little guy.
That’s a kneaded eraser.
You can make sweet little dog sculptures in between classes out of these guys.
You can fold it so you’ve got kind of a clean spot.
If you really want to get in tighter on something.
You can kind of pull that in, find a new clean spot, pinch it.
That’s going to affect the mark that you can lift out.
I might have gotten a little carried away filling this in, but that’ll help lift it
out a little bit this way.
This guy, more just of an average white, kind of plasticy eraser.
This guy already has these hard edges.
See how it works on graphite over here.
This one is probably more reminiscent of the eraser you used in school growing up.
It doesn’t quite have the versatility of this one that you sculpt does, this kneaded eraser.
So, that’s this guy versus this guy.
Then you have, this is sweet.
I just swiped it out of Chris’ boxes.
This is an eraser pencil, literally encased in wood.
Looks like Faber-Castel.
Let’s just play with this.
Let’s take this guy over this tone.
It’s lifting it out as well.
If we look over here just on the graphite… so, look at that.
I mean this is really fine.
You can sharpen this to a point.
So if you’re doing an exercise where you want to do some really tight rendering or
careful work, this thing would be awesome.
Take that razor just like you would sharpen another pencil.
So, we’ve done a really quick intro to some different types of marks made with pencils
and with erasers.
So, Chris is going to tell you a little bit more about pens and markers.
Really, pens and markers come in two basic forms.
They are either going to be some kind of ballpoint like this on the right, or a felt tip like
this over here on the left.
Little tiny felt tip.
My favorite pen in the universe is the ordinary Bic office ballpoint.
Bic is a very, very common pen, just a nice, ordinary ballpoint pen.
It’s makes a beautiful, pretty line.
Very similar effect to like a drawing pencil.
They come in different sizes and forms.
This is an old school one here.
You can also get a ballpoint with what’s called gel ink.
This is a little bit of a gel pen, little bit of a darker ink.
These are all at the office store.
You can find them at the art store too, but you can just find them at any old school supply
or office store.
Very common.
Very easy to find.
You can even get them for free.
That’s what I love about them.
Ordinary ballpoint pen is great for drawing, great for practice.
Another common pen you’ll find is the felt tips.
These are two different brands.
This brand on the right is called Staedtler.
This is more known for a drafting type of pen, a really nice precise type of line.
I’ll show you want that looks like.
A really tight line.
This is a Sakura Micron brand.
Very common brand, also felt tip.
These are more of the artsy kind in most art stores you should be able to get.
The advantage of felt versus ballpoint is that felt almost always dry right away.
A gel or a ballpoint may not dry too quickly.
Felt tips will dry almost instantly as soon as they touch your papers.
They’re great for making nice permanent lines.
Speaking of permanent, let’s get into the markers.
Probably my favorite marker in the Universe is the Sharpie, AKA the black permanent marker,
AKA you can find it anywhere in the universe.
Look at that bad boy.
Now Sharpies come in different sizes and shapes.
This is the most common marker.
Like the pen, it’s a felt tip pen so it dries instantly.
Nice dark and rich mark.
This is a Sharpie that has two sides.
These are fairly common now.
You can also get them in this big boy size with a fat wedge.
Great for making bigger strokes, getting more coverage.
I really love the Sharpie because it’s nice and dark.
It’s inexpensive and very, very easy to find.
And finally, the last type of marker that you may be using, you may enjoy are the art markers.
This is Prismacolor brand.
They also make really nice colored pencils and things.
But their markers are excellent.
There are several different brands you may find, but they typically will be in the same
style, kind of as big fat looking body with two tips.
This one has a fine tip and this one has a big fat head, a wedge tip as it’s called.
These come in different colors, but for drawing I love gray.
This one is 40%.
It’s right in the middle.
It’s about a midtone gray.
Of course, black all day long because black gives you a nice crispy, dark mark.
Get a lot of coverage.
These are great.
These actually have beautiful tones.
That’s the advantage of these guys versus the Sharpie is that you can get a whole range of tones.
It’s a really nice, clean pigment.
Think of Sharpies as more of a crude sketching tool.
If you really want to do renderings, there are many ways to do beautiful renderings with
Prismacolor markers or other types of art markers that you might find at your local art store.
Okay, so that was a quick look at various pens that you can use and enjoy while you’re drawing.
Now, let’s take a look at some papers and various papers and things you can use
as well when you’re doing your drawings.

When you’re first getting started, the variety of options out there can be a little intimidating.
We’re going to talk briefly about how paper is made and then show you some real ones you
can go out and pick up today.
If you look at paper under a microscope, you’ll actually see a web of these long fibers.
These fibers act as a file.
That’s what is going to hold the pigment that you use in your writing utensil on the page.
The degree to which you press into that or the degree of hardness of the utensil, you’ll
leave a variety of marks.
Paper can be made from a variety of plant fibers, but the most common are wood and cotton.
Now, wood is a little less archivable unless it’s treated, and you’ll find wood in
examples like newsprint.
Although, if it is treated with something like an addition of cellulose, you can actually
have a more archivable paper.
Things like tracing papers have a degree of cellulose in them.
There is a blend of the tow.
Mix of the cotton and the wood, and that’s probably the most common.
You’re going to see that in your sketchbooks and in a lot of charcoal drawing paper.
The alternative to a blend would maybe a 100% cotton rag, and those are some of the most
archivable and highest-quality papers.
The cotton is not going to degrade at the rate the wood will.
So, newsprint, if it’s made of wood, it might only last two or three years and it
gets kind of attacked by environmental factors right away.
That cotton is where you want to go when you’re ready to work on finishing some pieces, things
you want to keep or sell.
Let’s look at some common papers,
ones that we would recommend using at New Masters Academy.
Starting on the end here, this is a really smooth newsprint.
The newsprint is going to be great for sketching and studying.
It’s not going to be great for anything you want to keep.
Newsprint can actually start to deteriorate in like two or three years.
Next to that is a bond paper.
The bond paper is a blend.
It’s going to be a mix of the wood and the cotton.
Bond papers are common.
Those are also see in writing and printing, the stuff you stick in your copier.
They have varying degrees of quality, but they are going to last longer than the newsprint.
If you’re a student wanting to do sketches, and you’re worried about using newsprint
because you think I might actually like this; I might want to keep it.
Then you might consider stepping up to a bond or blended paper.
The tracing papers are great.
Those actually are nonaging.
These have a really nice smooth surface for doing studies on.
This is 66% cotton rag.
This is the Canson paper.
This also comes in a nice tone.
That’s another option.
If you want to have a dark value, and maybe you have like a white Conté crayon, you can
find a paper in a middle value, and let that be your middle value.
Use your utensils for the darkest darks and the lightest lights, and let that be the midrange.
You can also find paper with different tints and color.
This is also an example of a laid pattern.
The laid refers to the wire screen which gives it a texture.
Here we have the Bristol from Strathmore.
This starts to get a little bit more thicker.
The thicker the paper the more forgiving it’s going to be.
The more you’ll be able to get your eraser in there.
The more re-do’s you’re going to get.
This is a vellum finish, but there is a couple of different finishes with Bristol.
Then finally, at the end here, this is 100% cotton, and it’s handmade.
If you look at the edge here, it’s a little bit rough because it’s a deckled edge.
These are some of the highest quality, most archivable papers that are around.
So, you can really experiment.
You’ll find if you’re using something like graphite, you’re probably going to
want a smoother surface.
If you’re using a charcoal or a conte, you do want a little bit of texture.
If you’re using a pastel you probably really want a lot of texture in your paper.
So, we’ve given you a lot of options for paper, but let’s keep it simple.
We have two that we recommend that will get you a lot of mileage.
This is one favorite.
This is Biggie by Canson.
This is a bond paper.
It’s a little more archivable than a basic newsprint.
It’s easy to find.
You can get this in the store or online.
Great for sketches and studies.
This is a classic newsprint.
This one is bound, but you can get it even less expensive if you buy it in loose sheets.
It does come in rough and smooth, and we really do recommend you get smooth.
So, now you have an idea of what paper you might want to pick up, whether you’re starting
out or you’re working on your next masterful piece.

Alright, now we’re going to talk about one of my favorite subjects, the sketchbook.
So, sketchbooks come in many different forms, many different sizes.
There are a lot of different ways you can go with this.
So, Heather, what are some of the common ways you can start with sketchbooks?
Let’s start with probably one of the most common ones.
This is just a hardbound, little mini black book here.
This is great.
Keep some notes in it.
Do some little thumbnails.
Holds them all together.
It’s a nice way to start.
What else you got?
Yeah, definitely, I see those everywhere.
And they come in all different sizes as well.
The hardbound is very common.
I personally like the spiral bound.
It’s just like the hardbound, same type of material on the outside.
What I like is that you can lay it flat.
This is great for photographing and scanning, so if you want to archive your work.
If you don’t want to get a premade sketchbook, you can get creative.
You can have your own made.
You can get some paper together and have it bound.
The hardbound books can feel really precious.
They’re permanent, right?
You don’t want to X-Acto knife out a page in here, and if you get a good, solid sketch
page, you’ll find you might start wanting to one-up yourself.
Don’t feel the pressure if you’re not.
But, if you start to get a little too precious with your hardbound book, there are some other
great ways to be more creative and a little more liberal with your ideas without starting
to sweat the composition and things like that.
One step up from the cocktail napkin from the bar, the Post-It note.
These are already like a frame.
You can sit there and you can whip through them.
You can brainstorm.
You can do thumbnails.
If you like them you can stick them up on the wall when you’re done.
These are a great way to start idea generation or maybe composing in the field if you’re
plein air, or you don’t want to have to carry around a bunch of stuff.
So, these are great.
Slip them in your purse.
Another way to free things up, be a little more creative with it.
Is just to get a clipboard and any kind of loose, cheap paper that you want.
If you want to take it a step up, you can also get specialty papers.
One of my favorite ways I like to do is with the toned paper sketchbook.
This is a spiral-bound toned paper.
This one is in a gray tone.
They come in all different shades.
What I like about toned paper obviously is that you have the option to go black and also
add white.
So, that’s great about toned paper.
Also, if you want to get into water media you can get a watercolor sketchbook, and obviously
has a little bit thicker paper so if you want to experiment with watercolor like this, or
if you’re just beginning drawing, you can go with inks and black and white watercolor
washes as well.
So, Chris, you travel a lot, you’re sitting by the pool, you’re on vacation, you don’t
bring a sketchbook, right?
Taking some time off on your travels?
Oh, what do you mean?
I bring it every day.
This is more than just drawing for me.
This is a way of life.
These are my personal sketchbooks.
Notice they’re full, son—what’s up?
Everywhere you go.
That’s one of things we want to stress.
No matter what kind of sketchbook you choose, Post-It note, spiral-bound, hard-bound, whatever,
you’ve got to bring it with you.
You’ve got to draw every day.
This has got to be a part of your life.
That’s one of the ways you can get the most out of your practice time is to bring your
sketchbook.
If you’re a serious student—you know, Chris, I’ve heard that when you’re trying
to work in something like entertainment, I’ve heard they’ll ask you.
They’ll look through your sketchbook.
Is that true?
Oh, 100%.
In fact, many, many entertainment studios, animation, video games, even film or advertising
entertainment work, they will want to see your sketches.
When you come to the interview, you better make sure your sketchbook is packed and make
sure it’s full because that’s how they judge whether you’re serious,
whether you’re committed.
Right.
So, definitely, if you’re leaning towards that career path, you definitely want to carry
your sketchbook with you and make sure it’s full.
Yeah, it makes sense.
It’s not just our enthusiasm.
It’s a profession.
Alright, so we’ve covered the basic materials to get started.
Let’s talk about the furniture you need to set up a studio space.

Another great option is to work digitally.
So, I’m going to show you a few options now.
Digital technology has come a long way
in the last two or three years.
These two we have from Wacom,
and this is one from Apple.
So, starting with this tablet, this is one thing that
you’re going to plug in to your monitor.
You will work here and see the image on the screen.
This is working with indirect vision.
The tablet is going to be able to recognize
tilt and pressure. This is a great option.
Next to that, we have another tablet,
but this is a tablet plus a monitor.
So, it still needs to be plugged into the computer,
but with this you will actually
be drawing directly on your image.
I’m going to show you one more, the iPAD Pro with the Apple pencil.
This one is great.
This one is a standalone computer.
This is a tablet computer that can be used
without plugging in anything else, and you
can just take this with you anywhere you go,
so it’s super convenient, and it’s very great to use.
If it’s in your means, this is probably the one we would recommend.
Now, there are several options for software that can go with these.
Photoshop is great.
Sketchbook is great.
If you have this, there is an app, Procreate is highly recommended.
And you are welcome to continue to work with me as I will be, which is traditionally, as
we move through the Beginner’s Series.
If you want to work digitally, that’s great as well.
Anything we do can be adapted for digital, because in the end drawing is drawing.