This exercise is awesome and can be done digitally as well: Insert your reference as a new layer. Make a new layer and fill it with pure white. Lower the opacity to somewhere around 30. Make a new layer and mark the top and bottom of your reference. Move it to the side and follow along with the video.

I've been trying to improve my drawing - trying to draw Bargue plates and using the book by Andrew Loomis but this is one of the best drawing exercises I've ever seen. Thanks Scott!

your videos are truly instructive, not just showing off your talent. Thank you.

Great exercise, wish someone had shown me stuff like this when I was first starting out, would of saved me years of art school frustration. Wonderful demo.

as an artist myself i can say, if you are an amateur or a pro... this is the best drawing exercise I've seen. I'll be doing it. You do it too.

I haven't been drawing much or even at all the past four years. Watching you put me into the zone. Thank you for the exercise and the bit of peace. It was great!

I try go art school for 1 day & feel it just not for me. So now I'll keep on drawing stress-free, and enjoying all the way!! Nice technique

Thanks master Scott 🌱 So liberating and inspiring. I also like your strong humorous commentary about your experience with the stiff atmosphere at The Academy 🙄

This was an amazing tip, gonna try it for sure!

Game changer for me. Thank you for sharing this!

Amazing tip! I will certainly try to do it on my own.

So grateful you choose to teach, Scott!!! Thank you ❤️

I love this! Thank you!

Thank you Scott ! This is an Awesome exercise !

Great exercise! Certainly one I never thought of doing. I'll definitely be giving it a go!

Great one. Thanks for sharing this

This was super helpful. Thanks for the amazing video.

I love how humble you seem. I am loving this exercise and I think this is exactly what I need.Thank you for reminding me that high caliber artists also make mistakes

This was so helpful, thank you.

so glad that i found your video. i've been trying to think of ways on how to improve my proportions and accuracy and this exercise fits the bill perfectly. thank you so much!

Excellent exercise idea!

I love the opening, that as itself is art.

Thanks, I'll give this a try!

Love your videos. The comedy is appreciated, and quality not sacrificed. You are like the high school art teacher everyone wished they had (but more knowledgeable)

Great idea I’ll give it a try. Thanks.

What a wonderful exercise!!!

Thank you for sharing your knowledge ! This is an awesome exercise !

Hey, good exercise. I like that you mentioned that a person often tends to make the same mistake. I'll watch for that.

very beautifully explained thank you so much

What a great idea!

Great stuff. I find myself doing stuff like this when I am having a tough time seeing those pictures that seem visible but lack the clarity you thought it had, such as instagram pictures. Tracing paper truly is the perfectionist friend.

What an amazing exercise! I love it! I'm amazed at the heavy lines you put down while sketching. You exude confidence in your ability.That's awesome!! Thank you for sharing I will certainly be using this tip!👍😁

This was a nice exercise. I will definitely try it myself.

Pure gem

This is a great exercise, Scott.

Very honest and not afraid of errors..cos you learn from it..great way of sketching..

Great exercise!!!

That was fantastic. Thank you. Very helpful. I too love the eyes most 😊

You have a sense of humor - that is an enduring quality that will never be destroyed. I appreciate your help. Thank- you!

You’re awesome!!

Great idea ❤️❤️👍👍👍

Dude! I can totally relate with the intro of this video!! 😂 🤣 You’re so funny, man! Thanks for this exercise. I am definitely going to start using this exercise right away!

Brilliant! I sort of arrived at this exercise on my own as I want greater accuracy on canvas without gridding up etc....thank you....I will do more of it ......I am learning so much from you!

Very helpful, thank you.

Thanks Scott. This is a really helpful exercise. I did the portrait at the beginning of this video some time ago from your Patreon page but wasn't happy with the proportions. I'd like to use this exercise and try it again.

Haven`t caught you for years due to personal changes, but am glad to be back with one of your episodes. You may be rusty, but you are an incredible artist and that will come back, what you have is a great way of teaching that others I have checked out don`t... namely, you don`t have off putting pretensions. You are kind; that makes you a great teacher, that alone makes your students capable of greatness, no matter where we start from. Thank you.

I'm have to be honest. This is one of those brilliant ideas that seems like something that could have been easily thought of. This method of practice is fantastic.

This is indeed useful! Thank you!

Excellent another Waddell... Thanks for the excellent info. Just stumbled upon your video. 😁

great work 👏🏻👏🏻

Thankyou so much for sharing, have learned so much since watching your videos, its like you dont know what you dont know😁, you are a God send, love your humour too, much appreciated.

Thank you

Great exercise, I am going to buy tracing paper this weekend and start practicing!

Scott thank you so much for this demonstration. Your drawing skills are insane. I'm super impressed by how accurate you were in such a short amount of time. I always find drawing to be the most difficult aspect of representational art. I'm definitely ordering some tracing paper to practice this exercise. You're amazing 🙏

Brilliant thank you

I was watching the whole thing feeling that the face was coming up too narrow on your end. I was surprised at how precise it turned out to be, and that shows how my perception needs to improve.

amazing!

Im 1min into the video and I can already tell that you’re a very good person keep up the good work 😁💪

Excellent

loved it

First, you’re hilarious…second, my goodness, someone that finally got through to me, how to do the angles! Thank you so much!

😅insanely accurate! I'm in awe!

Excellent video and excercise, Scott. On the topic of being "rusty" - I would be really interested in an episode where you share more of your thoughts on the ebb and flow of practice as an experienced professional artist. I have in my own work observed that your different skill sets tend to grow and diminish over time depending on what you are focusing on currently and shifts in interests & life circumstances etc., and it's easy to fall behind on certain skills. There is a certain juggling aspect to it if we hope to achieve macro growth across the board in all different skills. I have a feeling you would have interesting and valuable things to say on the topic. Many thanks.

Omg at the "g'day mate" I laughed SO hard that I scared my cat.... 😂😂 Love how you have SUCH great info, but you're so authentically you and your natural humour shines through. Very much appreciated.

Thanks for the tip I been having trouble with my drawing of the face

Brilliant I’ve always try working freehand & aways felt tracing isn’t for me or gridding but this is great shore gonna have a go Thankyou

God bless you. I love your videos. Plus you’re funny.

I just found this video and I was already doing this by comparing my drawing and reference in Photoshop but using a simple piece of tracing paper is a much simpler and better idea. Thanks!

I kind of figured this trick out for myself. I would do it a little bit different: I have the photo on my Computerscreen, draw it free hand on paper, correct it as much as I can, and as a last resort „cheat“ I would sometimes just hold the paper over the screen. If the paper is thin enough, the picture shines through. I figured out, that I usually draw the skull to narrow, and the nose is to narrow/short. What I somehow didn’t figure out until I watched your video is, that it is a great exercise to recognize my pattern of mistakes.

Thanks

Perfect

10 minutes in and I'm like the Lion King.... awesome tutorial man, simple and to the point. BTW one video and subbed, I liked your approach.

I do this through Procreate. I have one layer with my reference image and then create a transparent layer with a photo of my actual drawing. This way probably leaves more room for error but I’ve still noticed an improvement in my drawing

I've never had a so relatable first 10 seconds before.

Nice sir

I am 53. I Have practiced my drawing on and off for many years.. I will do a bunch.. then set it down and forget about sketching for a long time years... and then pick it up and I notice improvement. I last sketched in 2019 and when I picked sketching back up here in the last week or so MAN that stuff was percolating. While I wasn't great on making my faces look like the actual person in the photo.. I was still pleased at how i actually made it look MORE real than it has ever been... so I am inspired.. I just bought some more tracing paper. I do have a light box but I will do it this way.... I am struggling to place the eyes correctly

🤣🤣🤣 You're hilarious, Scott! Thanks for the tips 😉

best painter on youtube by faR

I go to a really shit art school where they don’t actually teach us how to draw so I gotta take things into my own hands, it’s KZfaq videos like this that have become my art school now. Thank you.

Clever!

GOOD!!☺

A variation I do digitally is to copy the reference into a new layer, and then put a mosaic filter on that layer so that it becomes blocky and blurred. Then I begin tracing over the mosaic layer. This gives me a starting point that's very similar to copying from a grid, but to take it any further I have to start interpreting the shape and use my construction skills to establish the exact proportion. When I'm done(and I usually aim to just capture the main elements quickly, within 5-10 minutes), I reveal the original, trace a second time, now more accurately, and take out the red pen to find the differences. Because blurring eliminates the small details first, those are where the biggest differences appear, and if I make the filter very strong I can turn it into something almost gestural. Something I've been doing more recently is to test my ability to interpret light by lowering the contrast of the source image and then applying an edge detect filter, so that there's a flat base with little lighting information; I don't think I've perfected how to set up this kind of study yet(perhaps tracing contours by hand is a better setup), but any study method that includes an easy method of finding and self-correcting errors is extremely powerful for building up fundamentals.

Great👍👍❤❤

I know what you mean about "Is this what I look like?" Great video, new subscriber!

I love your intros! lol

yes i like it.

❤❤❤

Intresting exercise! Btw this photo is so inspiring to me, where can I find it in full res, if possilble? Thank you!

This tilt right here

Scott-Do a self-portrait you will look great!!!!

Amazing ... Grid method for me is a bit tedious yet rewarding once done... But i appreciate this new technique sir it is not like i was tracing it 100...

Thank you so much, I’ve been trying to improve drawing sketches and anatomy. I feel like that’s when I mess up! Thanks again, I really enjoyed this lesson.

Good practical idea! Got any more? 😉Thanks!

Lol glad u are chanelling us aussies

❤

Lol this guy is funny 😆

👍

this is how i look like. bro, i felt that. tha's why i don't make videos xD Thanks for the insights my friend! Really helpful

First time I've watched one of your videos, interesting idea. I can't help wondering why your initial top pencil mark was the hair and not the forehead/hairline?

can i use construction drawing like the lomis head