Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102200 in Books
• Published on: 1995-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

Synopsis
A manual on drawing portraits from photographs, using the author's blended-pencil drawing technique, and offering advice on how to suggest three dimensions on simple shapes.

Customer Reviews

Excellent step by step examples
This book does exactly what it says; Learn how to draw lifelike portraits from photographs!
I picked up my pencils for the first time in years, I did a few drawings of my children that looked more like evil pixes! I bought this book a week later, practised the examples and was stunned how much better my drawings were in one week. My husband wants to frame them! That's a first for my artwork!
If you want to learn how to draw accurate portraits then I strongly reccommend this book. I will definately be ordering more from this author.

Fantastic.
If using grids was good enough for Leonardo da Vinci then its certainly good for the rest of us. It does take longer to perfect your works of art than the book suggests (or maybe thats just me) but I have to admit I have been stunned by my own results after only a few attempts and I have not used a pencil since school! Even my matchstick men look like splodges.
If you want to draw portraits then buy this book.

Mediocre artist, incomplete information about drawing
I'm an experienced portrait artist, (have sold a lot of my artwork over the years). I was curious about this book, so I bought it. I have to admit, I found some things in it to be quite appalling.

The author's own artwork isn't very good. It has an amateurish "smeared graphite" look that I see too often in beginner's drawings. Sure, this technique can sometimes look OK, but too often, it just looks tacky. (WAY too often, it looks tacky!) This book has more than a few "tacky" smeared graphite portraits on it. The portraits are over-rendered, and often look flat and muddy. Only a few portraits look OK.

And then there's the accuracy of the drawing. It isn't all that good at times. I don't think the author can draw very well on her own. It seems like she is a little too reliant on the "grid" method she preaches. (The grid method is fine for some things, and is great for learning. But for crying out loud, the author should posses the ability to draw accurately without using it!) Some of the drawings were pretty obviously wrong, or out of proportion (I assume these were the ones that she didn't grid). What good are such illustrations as teaching aids?

I fear that this author is (possibly inadvertantly) feediing incorrect information to new artists - that the grid method is fine for ALL drawing. It isn't! It's just one method among many that an artist should learn. If all an artist knows how to do is use a grid, they'll end up never being able to draw freehand (from life) and they'll never be able to sketch pictures out from their imagination.

And, what a hassle it is to always have to put all those grid squares over the photograph, and the drawing paper. It would drive me batty. Other portrait drawing books teach how to draw *without* the grid, which is much better. That way, the artist use that skill in other ways, (like for drawing from life). So, I wonder - why does this book only push just one (rather limiting) drawing method, like the grid?

I cannot recommend this book. It's feeding too much incorrect information to new artists, and the artwork isn't very good!

Added March 31, 07: It is not true that the Old Master artists (like Da Vinci) only used the grid method. The grid method is perfectly find in many respects--like, to enlarge an image to mural size, as a learning aid, or for a particularly tricky pose. But there is no way that all artists used the grid method 100% of the time. It's not possible. There are many paintings of mythical creatures--how does one grid an image of a creature that doesn't exist? Or how does one grid something that is flying or running (during an era before photography)? Obviously these accomplished artists learned other disciplines like anatomy and drawing from life (and then, perhaps, drawing from the imagination). The grid method can be fine, but it is very limited and cannot be the solution for every art challenge. That is why books such as this one are misleading--they may give the newbie artist the impression that grids are "good enough," when in fact, they can be crippling--leaving an artist frustrated and overly dependent on the grid only.