Here are several suggestions of drawing methods books for beginners and advanced artists.
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| New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook
Betty Edwards
Millions of people have learned to draw using the methods of Dr. Betty Edwards. Now, in an essential companion to her bestselling classic, Edwards offers readers the key to mastering this art form: guided practice in their newfound creative abilities.
Here are forty new exercises that cover each of the five basic skills of drawing. |
| | How to Draw What You See
Rudy De Reyna
"I believe that you must be able to draw things as you see them—realistically," wrote Rudy de Reyna in this introduction. Today, generations of artists have learned to draw what they see, to truly capture the world around them, using de Reyna’s methods. How to Draw What You See shows artists how to recognize the basic shape to draw the object, no matter how much detail it contains. |
| | Pencil Drawing Techniques
David Lewis
This book takes you from the basics untill you reach the developed level. It covers most of the basic topics in pencil drawing. First, the book goes over the basics of shapes and different shades of pencil lead. Then we go over shading. The book is primarily focusing on different shading and strokes techniques in order to get that "life-like" realism in your drawing.
We would recommend this book to beginners in pencil drawing. |
| | Drawing Realistic Textures in Pencil
J. D. Hillberry
Contrary to the publicity on this book, it doesn't contain techniques "so easy that anyone from doodler to advanced artist can master in minutes." This is instead a highly challenging manual on achieving effects close to photographic with little more than a sharp pencil. Hillberry, an artist and teacher, offers splendid demonstrations on creating the look of metal, wood, hair, and even cracked glass. To his credit, Hillberry admits one needs to have already grasped shape, proportion, and perspective before approaching this level of realism. Highly recommended for collections that need more than the basics. |
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| Keys to Drawing
Bert Dodson
The art of drawing is an act of uncanny coordination between the hand, the eye, and the mind. Dodson doesn't spend the whole first chapter describing the tools you need. He doesn't launch into a zen discussion of the "is-ness" of art or play amateur psychologist. He just tells you to sit down, cross your legs, and draw your feet -- and he explains, in very simple terms, just how to go through the process. Look, hold, draw. Look, hold, draw. And it works, it really does. |
| | Secrets to Drawing Realistic Faces
Carrie Stuart Parks
This book will have beginning artists of all ages drawing faces that are strikingly realistic and detailed. Artist Carrie Stuart Parks honed her fast and effective drawing skills as a professional forensic artist. Here she makes drawing fun and easy, showing beginners how to render vivid self portraits and portraits of others, all in a matter of hours. |
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| How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs
Lee Hammond
Lee Hammond instructs the reader to use a graphing approach to get a likeness, as it seems she does in all her books. She then describes in detail how to draw each feature of a face and gives many examples and exercises in using the blended pencil technique. Finally the reader is encouraged to put it all together and do a full portrait.
The book is very well-organized and detail-oriented, not to mention visually appealing. |
| | Drawing Expressive Portraits
Paul Leveille
This guide encourages students to forget about creating a likeness, and instead, to concentrate on seeing and drawing the big shapes of dark and light. The likenesses will follow. In a clear, step-by-step format, with the help of nine start-to-finish portrait demonstrations, readers will learn:
- Easy, basic pencil and charcoal techniques
- How to draw each feature of the face
- How to communicate various facial expressions
- Techniques for working from live models
- How to draw a variety of people, different poses and lighting conditions. |
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| Colored Pencil Portraits Step by Step
Ann Kullberg
Portraits not only capture a likeness, but offer for generations to come a glimpse into the subject's life. Sounds like quite a challenge. But with Ann Kullberg's help, it's not as difficult as one might think to create lifelike colored pencil portraits.
Using her own beautiful portraiture for instruction and inspiration, Kullberg walks artists through the process step by step--from basic information about materials and techniques to two demonstrations that show how complete portraits come together from beginning to end. |
| | Secrets To Realistic Drawing
Carrie Parks, Rick Parks
With Secrets to Realistic Drawing, even complete beginners can get great results fast. It's easy to create lifelike sketches in no time, with:
-Encouraging instruction on all the drawing basics, from proportion and scaling to values and shading
-Easy-to-follow advice for fixing parts of a drawing that don't look quite right
-Techniques and strategies for making a drawing look real
-Five detailed step-by-step demonstrations showing the entire process from start to finish
The authors' infectious, you-can-do-it attitude is sure to make budding artists feel like they've finally found a true cheerleader for their creative dreams! |
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| People & Portraits (Drawing in Color)
Lee Hammond
Learn how to draw realistic portraits with colored pencils. |
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| Watercolor Basics: Let's Get Started
Jack Reid
One might reasonably ask, "Why another basic watercolor book in an already packed market?" Simply put, most books fall far short the beginner's book is perhaps the most difficult to write. Reid has taught more than 10,000 students during his distinguished career and has a unique understanding of how to transmit his knowledge. He neither assumes too much nor condescends. This is among a few such books Mary Whyte's Watercolor for the Serious Beginner (Watson-Guptill, 1997) is another that can be highly recommended. |
| | Painting Beautiful Skin Tones With Color & Light in Oil, Pastel
Chris Saper
Artists constantly tell us that they need guidance for rendering skin tones in their portraiture. This book helps them overcome this elusive challenge by providing a clear set of easy-to-follow principles for painting a variety of skin tones in three major mediums--oil, pastel and watercolor. The first chapter is rooted in the basics, showing artists how to recognize and use the five major elements of painting: drawing, value, color, composition and edges. From there, artists learn how to work with light, shadow and color to effectively capture the beautiful skin tones of various ethnic groups. Four mini-demos, three long demos and many examples illustrate the lessons. |
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| Art: The World's Greatest Paintings Explored and Explained
Robert Cumming
An exploration of some of the world's great paintings, ranging from the works of 14th-century Giotto through the Renaissance and Baroque periods to Neo-Classicists and Romantics, on to the Impressionists and Cubists up to Picasso. Cumming describes and decodes each of 45 paintings by graphic commentary using six guidelines: the subject, the technique, the symbolism, space and light, historical style, and personal interpretation. Detailed sections of each painting are analyzed to point out symbols or obscure subjects, to locate unusual signings by the artist, and to describe materials used. |
| | Learning To Look At Paintings
Mar Acton
A critique of works of art dating from the early fifteenth century through to modern installations, Learning to Look at Paintings is an accessible guide to the study and appraisal of paintings, drawings and prints. Mary Acton shows how one can learn to look at and understand an image by analyzing how it works, what its pictoral elements are and how they relate to each other. She describes the ingredients of composition, space, form, tone and color which make up a painting, and discusses the importance of subject, function and setting in appreciating its visual meanings. Acton also suggests a series of questions to ask when looking at a painting in order to help develop a critical understanding of art. |
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