Lessons in Classical Drawing || Juliette Aristides

This quite scholarly book looks at drawing techniques through Old Master as well as contemporary examples, combined with a selection of specific lessons covering subjects from measured drawing to line work and the human form.

It’s very much a book to read and absorb rather than something to treat as a practical course and therefore probably best suited to someone who already has some facility and is wanting to study the subject in more, indeed considerable, depth. The range of subjects is comprehensive and the quality of both the work and the reproduction is superb, and it is in fact possible to enjoy the book for that alone and to ignore its use as a learning aid.

That the accompanying DVD is filmed in Florence is just the icing on the cake, really.

Learn World Calligraphy || Margaret Shepherd

This nicely-done and copiously illustrated work offers a look at calligraphy alphabets beyond the usual Roman, Italic and Uncial. You get Celtic, Oriental, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic and more with details of how to cut and hold your pens as well as the letter shapes, and notes about the tradition in a variety of cultures.

I think it’s fair to say that this is something for the calligraphy enthusiast rather than the beginner or dilettante. You need to be comfortable with basic techniques (and Margaret has several books which will help you master those) before you try the less-familiar shapes that are shown here. However, if you’re looking for a way to expand your range, you’ll find a lot to explore and digest here.

Expressive Figure Drawing || Bill Buchman

Well, this is something a bit different. I can’t decide whether I like the results, but there’s no disputing the quality of the work or the production of the book.

Most books on figure painting concentrate on getting a likeness and on things like proportion and structure. Bill Buchman, however, pretty much tells you to ignore all that and use the figure purely as a creative tool. Artists have, of course, been doing this for centuries – well, the last century or so, at any rate, though some cave art suggests that animals were seen as line rather than form some thousands of years ago. To put this in an instructional book, however, is something new and builds on the discovery in recent years that abstract painting is in fact something that can be taught, if you just show the reader how to see and then allow the function to follow the form.

There’s absolutely no doubt that this is an exciting approach, or that Bill Buchman is the man to do it. There’s an amazing versatility and variety in his approach as well as a confidence of line that pretty much means you won’t disagree with him even if, as I said, you’re not sure whether you like all the results. On balance, I think I like some and admire others. My favourite is Hip To Be Square on page 103. What is it? Well, you’ll just have to find a copy, won’t you?

Watercolor: a beginner’s guide || Elizabeth Horowitz

You’d think that, after some 30 years in this business, I’d have seen far too many beginner’s guides to painting and be about as excited about a new one as a child getting a re-wrapped toy for Christmas.

But the strange thing is that I’ve seen hardly any. I don’t mean that all the books that pass across my desk are aimed at the super-competent professional, because they’re not. What I mean is that books which just explain the basic processes to someone who’s wanting to get started are few and far between. And, actually, most of those try to cover every possible medium and are surely aimed at the gift market, people who are buying a book for someone else, rather than someone who has a serious interest but doesn’t quite know how to get that first foot on the ladder. How many people, hearing, “I know you’re a bit arty, so I thought you might like this”, don’t feel like a ten-year-old being given a rattle?

So, this is a bit of a treasure, not least because it confines itself to watercolour and doesn’t try to be all things to all persons. Immediately, it has the feeling that it means business. Delving inside reveals a technique-based approach that works surprisingly (or do I mean unsurprisingly?) well. This moves from Setup and Basic Techniques to Colour and Glazing and then on to Composition and Perspective, and Positive and Negative Shapes. Given that these last four things are the basic grammar of painting, you really shouldn’t gloss over them in the early stages and hope that you can pick them up later when you have a head full of vocabulary; it won’t work. Negative shapes are very rarely covered anywhere, so it’s particularly pleasing to find them dealt with here.

The overall layout of the book is pleasantly simple and easy to follow and each section within the chapter headings is relatively short so that you have time to linger and absorb things one at a time. There are bullet-lists of hints and tips and example paintings when you need them. What there are not are lots of demonstrations, but the author isn’t afraid to include the odd step-by-step when it’s absolutely necessary.

Altogether, I get the feeling of a book that includes and cares about me, rather than being pleased with itself and trying to show me how great the author is.

Contemporary Drawing – key concepts and techniques || Margaret Davidson

There was a time, long ago, when Watson Guptill was the kid on the block when it came to art publishing. True, some of their books were almost aggressively, insularly American and really didn’t travel, but they still came up with such gems as Charles Reid’s Flower Painting in Watercolor, the first practical art book to be illustrated in full colour (which was not until 1979, amazing as that might seem). In later years, the quality seemed to fall off and there was a sense that they had lost their direction. More recently, there has been an indication of a climb back, with some solid offerings that got the job done, even if, perhaps, they didn’t have the old spark.

It’s with a real sense of delight, therefore, that I can report that they’ve finally regained their mojo. There are three of their books in this batch of reviews and I’ve been enthusiastic about all of them. OK, technically, I haven’t been enthusiastic about this one yet, but I’m about to say that it’s a tour de force.

This is a book about drawing. So much, so obvious, and so simple. Actually, it’s pretty much the book about drawing that I’ve been trying to get publishers interested in for several years, though with a rather specific author in mind. What I mean is that it’s neither a practical manual, nor a collection of pretty or interesting pictures positioning itself as a survey of current work. Its both of those things and yet it’s so much more as well. It’s a book about the philosophy of drawing as well as its practice, both in creative and technical terms. When I say it’s about drawing, I mean it’s all about drawing and it’s about all drawing as well. Literally opening it at random, I’ve come up with two sections that sort of show you what I mean: “The Self-Governed but Unforeseeable Mark” is what other books would refer to as a happy accident, but putting it the way Margaret has raises something simple to a much higher plane, yet without being pretentious. Then again, “A Brief History of Paper” is exactly the sort of digression a book like this should go in for and, as you might expect, it becomes not a digression at all, but an essential part of the main thesis.

I could go on, but I’m hoping you get the idea, because now I’ve got to talk about the illustrations. These are extraordinary. They’re beautiful, intriguing and often challenging and they’re magnificently reproduced. A lot of care has gone into this book and it’s apparent that the editors have fully understood the nature of what the author has presented them with. The pictures themselves come from a variety of contemporary (American) practitioners but are also interspersed with Margaret’s own work and diagrams when it comes to the practical sections.

Magnificent.

Basic Anatomy for the Manga Artist || Christopher Hart

This is a nice, simple guide to anatomy which is perfectly suited to the Manga artist, who has very specific requirements about what they want to draw and how they want to draw it. Its content is absolutely summed up in its title.

And that’s all I really need to say, except that, if you’re not a Manga artist, it’s also worth more than a cursory glance because Christopher provides a basic guide to drawing figures for people who don’t want to draw figures. How so? Well, let’s assume that you’re not looking to produce muscle-accurate representations of the human form, but rather to include figures in a painting and have them not look like statues or waxworks. As long as they’re convincing, they’ll pass muster.

If that’s you, then this has much to recommend it. True, you’ll have to get past the big-eyed kids that are the staple of Manga, so you may need to do a bit of work of your own on faces, but, apart from that, you get nice simple instructions and demonstrations of male and female figures in a variety of poses and moves that you should be able to adapt for more general purposes. It’s important to emphasise “adapt”, because, if you don’t think you’re capable of a little lateral thinking, you may struggle. If you think you’re up for it, though, you’re quids in.

Botanical Drawing in Color || Wendy Hollender

There’s no shortage of books on flower painting and drawing, from loose approximations of form right through to the tight discipline of botanical illustration. What’s offered here tends strongly towards the latter, while not being afraid to consider the pictorial aspects of the work rather than concentrating solely on all the minute details of the subject.

As well as a lot of useful information on techniques, the author also provides an extensive series of demonstrations that go further than we often find, explaining the structure of flowers and plants as well as ways to portray them using coloured pencils.

If you’re serious, but not obsessive about drawing flowers, this is definitely something you should consider.

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Landscape Painting || Mitchell Albala

This is by no means a book for the beginner, but rather a comprehensive review of landscape painting, for the most part in oils, for the serious student and, as such, it’s to be welcomed.

Most of the book is taken up with a discussion of the process of landscape painting and methods of interpreting different subjects, elements, colours, shapes and lighting patterns. There’s a great deal to read, but it’s punctuated with plenty of illustrations that illuminate the text and never leave you struggling for comprehension. The final section of the book is devoted to a series of demonstration paintings of a good variety of subjects and these are discussed in detail rather than being in the form that could almost be described as painting by numbers.

If you’re a landscape painter and you want a book that takes you as seriously as you take your subject, look no further.

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Portrait Painting Atelier || Suzanne Brooker

Good portrait painting books come along all too infrequently and something which takes the subject seriously and looks at it in such depth as this is to be welcomed. Suzanne Brooker examines every aspect of portrait painting, from style to facial features and expressions to composition and painting methods. There’s a great deal to read here, but there are also plenty of illustrations to leaven and punctuate it so that you’re never left struggling for comprehension. There is a also a generous series of demonstration paintings which are described in some detail. Although, as a result, they have fewer stage illustrations than has perhaps become the norm, they are, I think, more suited to the more technically advanced artist, the sort of person who is likely to be going into portraiture seriously. In any case, the whole book is anything but an introduction for the beginner and will appeal to (and should satisfy) the more demanding reader. It is a large and quite heavy tome that rewards extended study and is admirably comprehensive both in its coverage and its execution of that coverage.

If I have a reservation, it’s perhaps that the style of painting tends rather heavily towards the old-master that’s (admittedly) implied in the subtitle, but it is an American book and American portraiture can be rather like that. I still think you can learn a lot from it, though and I don’t think you’d feel your money was wasted. If that sounds like faint praise, it’s not meant to be.

http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=artbookreview-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=0M5A6TN3AXP2JHJBWT02&asins=082309927X

Traditional Oil Painting || Virgil Elliott

This is probably one of the most serious books on painting around at the moment. Generally speaking, books which place themselves in the art instruction camp concentrate on a how-to approach with plenty of pictures and a limited number of words. This, in its way, is no bad thing. In fact, it’s no bad thing at all, whether it its own or any other way. Painting is, after all, a visual medium and if you can’t explain it visually, well, the chances are you’re not doing it right.

What we have here, and what is certainly the author’s intention, is a look at the practice of painting in oils, taken from the viewpoint of the study of Old Masters (the “traditional” bit) and relating it to materials available today. This is done largely in words and with occasional illustrations to back them. You can, for example, get a dozen or so pages without a single picture, while types of oil and oil-to-pigment ratios are being discussed. There are step-by-step demonstrations – and the author makes it clear that the publisher insisted on more than he originally intended – but they are by no means the backbone of the book and they have something of the feeling of a sidebar about them.

All this sounds dry as dust, but your reaction to it will depend very much on what you’re looking for. If you want a beginner’s guide to how to paint in oils, then it’s fair to say this is not for you. However, if you’re perhaps quite an experienced practitioner, then you could well find that this is an absorbing read (and it is definitely a book to read, not one primarily to look at) going, as it does, into extensive detail of the nature and use of the materials. It reminds me a lot of Ralph Meyer’s Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques; as a source of reference, it’s invaluable and perhaps even second to none.

Watson Guptill 2007
£21.99

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