In the third lesson of the series, Mark begins with some general rules and tips for monochrome drawings– designing the shapes, the values we assign to them, and the edges between them. He then moves on to draw three shadow patterns on three heads based on the Reilly Abstraction. He incorporates three different lighting scenarios on these heads: form lighting, ambient lighting, and rim lighting.

In this series, Mark introduces you to the Reilly Method, a way of understanding the structure of the head through the use of rhythms, to help project accurate proportions of your subject from any angle.

As the protegé to the famous Fred Fixler, who worked directly under the legendary Frank Reilly, Mark’s unrivaled knowledge of the Reilly Method for drawing the head led to an illustrious career in Hollywood movie poster design. He later founded Associate’s in Art in Southern California, a top school for illustrators, from which many alumni became the “who’s who” in the fields of figurative art. He will be greatly missed, and his imprint on the industry, students across the world, and here at the NMA studio will last forever.