Review: Sketching Essentials in Graphite by Matt Brehm (Craftsy)

Sketching Essentials in Graphite is an online video course by Matt Brehm, an architecture professor and also a member of the Urban Sketcher community. I actually have his book Sketching on Location.

His course on sketching with graphite is actually a course on location drawing as well.

The lessons in his 117-minute course are as follows:

  1. Basic Mark Making - 18 min
  2. Planning Your Sketch - 10 min
  3. Seeing & Measuring - 13 min
  4. Developing Your Sketch - 24 min
  5. Value - 23 min
  6. Entourage - 29 min

Compared to other location sketching courses I've reviewed, Matt Brehm's course really starts from the basics to help you understand how to plan, compose and develop your sketch. Brehm talks about the thought process that goes behind the planning and I found that to be very insightful.

The latter lessons are techniques relating to sketching. This course assumes you have no knowledge of drawing so you'll be able to learn the techniques to get started. The instructions are clear and easy to follow.

One major downside of the course is there is sometimes too much talking and no demonstration to go with the talking. There's one lesson with only talking and no actual demonstration of drawing. Wow. Yes, the concepts are educational but without the demonstration, I find it difficult for people to learn how to actually apply what was taught. There are other sections in other lessons with too much talking and not much action but thankfully much shorter.

Overall, the course is informative and good for beginners.

If you are new to location sketching, this is the course to start with first.

Enroll in the course or check out more reviews on Craftsy.

Check out other video courses from Craftsy that I've featured at https://www.parkablogs.com/tags/craftsy

Disclosure: This course was provided to me by Craftsy for review purposes. You can support Parka Blogs by using the affiliate links as I get a little commission from each sale. :-)

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