Archive for category Subject: Birds
Painting Wildlife step by step || Rod Lawrence
Posted by henry in Author: Rod Lawrence, Medium: Acrylic, Medium: Oil, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: David & Charles, Publisher: North Light, Subject: Animals, Subject: Birds, Subject: Wildlife on March 22, 2011
I think it’s fair to say that you need a fair degree of skill under your belt before you tackle this book. However, that’s not unreasonable, because birds and animals are a difficult subject and anything that proclaims itself a beginner’s guide is inevitably going to trivialise and simply annoy the more serious practitioner.
That said, for those who aren’t daunted by the author’s highly detailed approach, it does start somewhere near the beginning, with main chapter heads devoted to fur, feathers, eyes and ears, feet and tails, etc. In other words, short demonstrations covering basic structure rather than full-blown and perhaps rather off-putting projects covering a whole creature.
Doing things this way allows you to build up your skills and techniques progressively and also to pick out whatever it is you need at any particular time. If there’s a criticism, it’s that there aren’t any complete projects, so you never get that “pulling it all together” section that most books like to include. Although, as the book is already 144 pages long, extending it in this way could double the length or significantly reduce the admirable attention to detail that characterises the author’s approach. Forewarned, you shouldn’t feel short-changed when you come to the end.
The overall approach is painstaking and Rod does well to break a complex and difficult subject down into manageable chunks that don’t become overwhelming.
Draw Series
Posted by henry in Author: Benedict Rubbra, Author: Charles Stephen, Author: David Brown, Author: John Raynes, Author: Mary Seymour, Author: Norman Battershill, Author: Roy Spencer, Medium: Drawing, Publisher: A&C Black, Series: Draw, Subject: Birds, Subject: Flowers, Subject: Horses, Subject: Interiors, Subject: Landscape, Subject: Techniques on April 30, 2007
Looking at this series, which has just been reissued, it comes as a surprise to realise that it was first published in 1981, making most of the volumes over 25 years old. All too often, publishers look at their backlist with an uncritical eye that seems to overlook developments in style and design that they themselves have done much to push forward and eagerly reissue titles that just look tired and do their list no favours at all. However, the initial impression here is of a freshness and clarity that many more recent books would do well to emulate.
Each book is a mere 48 pages but, at £4.99, very competitively priced and covers a remarkable amount of ground. By sticking to a single subject, the general preamble is kept short and the authors are able to get stuck straight in, covering all the main areas right from the start. Text is kept to a minimum, giving the greatest prominence to the artwork itself and it is this, as much as anything else, that contributes to the longevity of the series as art instruction books have moved away from lengthy discursive text to shorter descriptions which mainly take the form of extended captions. This, in itself, has been driven by advances in printing technology which has provided illustrations which are nearly as good as the original itself.
These books are excellent primers for the novice and will encourage as well as educate.
Reissued 2007
£4.99 per volume
