Introduction to Drawing

If you thought drawing meant only black-and-white sketches, think again! Colored oil pencils, crayons, even paints--they all work, as long as you see the world pictorially and understand the proper techniques. Master the marvelous art of drawing, applying a variety of mediums and styles. Try your hand at landscapes, still lifes, townscapes and buildings, nature, portraits and figures, animals, and the decorative arts--and tackle the individual challenges each one entails. See how to create perspective, picture plane, and tonal space, and examine how even a subtle change of composition can affect a drawing's appearance. Simple exercises will train your eye to notice detail and appraise the objects before you. Along the way, different drawing techniques are introduced, including continuous line drawing, cross-hatching, tonal effects, and pointillism. Hundreds of examples, both from famous painters such as Leonardo, Durer, and Seurat and from beginners like yourself, clearly illustrate exactly how the draw ings work. Often, highlighted sections of a drawing point to areas of particular interest. Bonus: A thorough review of materials and equipment, presentation, and framing round out this invaluable, richly illustrated guidebook. 128 pages (all in color), 8 1/2 x 11.

From the rather bland titles one might think that these were two indistinguishable basic drawing books. Fortunately, they are two very different animals. Bays, a cheerful artist from the south of England, assumes that the student may know nothing more about drawing than printing the alphabet. Jackson writes for the artist, or would-be-artist, who already has a developed sense of line and form. The differences are apparent from the start: Bays's first chapter is called "Making Marks" and covers, obviously, making marks on paper. Jackson's first chapter, "Perception," offers sophisticated exercises in perceptual processes and methods of translating observation into drawings. Jackson stretches the boundaries of drawing into full color and multimedia. Both books are worthwhile purchases, but for different audiences: Bays for beginners, and Jackson for advanced students.
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