Drawing: Mastering the Language of Visual Expressions (Abrams Studio)

Drawing is a language, a necessary skill for anyone who wants to express ideas or feelings in written images. Like all languages, it can be mastered with practice and instruction. Author Keith Micklewright distills a lifetime of hard thinking about drawing, presenting techniques-along with exercises-that help us become fluent at visual communication. The advantage of his approach is that drawing is seen as a flexible form of expression rather than a set of mechanical skills. There is no right way to draw creatively, anymore than there is one style of writing creatively. To drive this point home, Micklewright illustrates the book with marvelous drawings by great artists, from Old Masters to the present, that range from precise portraiture to ecstatic nature studies. There is no other book on the subject that combines such a deep, lucid text with such a generous collection of inspirational art.

Keith Micklewright was formerly head of Foundation Studies at The Arts Institute at Bournemouth, England. He is a practicing artist whose work is in collections in the U.S., Britain, and Australia.