Face Parts || Simon Jennings

This is the companion volume to Simon’s very successful Body Parts, which appeared last year, and was planned at the same time. It features the same layout, with a huge variety of photographic images and artistic interpretations in a variety of media. Neither book is a step-by-step how-to of its subject, but rather an in-depth guide to detail work that is absolutely invaluable for any figurative or portrait artist. Using either book it is possible to dispense with a model for most work, allowing much greater freedom in terms of both time taken and variety of interpretation and experimentation.

Simon’s approach in all his books is simply to immerse the reader in visual material to the extent almost of sensory overload so that the subject simply takes over your consciousness. It’s a bold and brave way of working and won’t be for everyone; certainly I wouldn’t recommend this as a book for beginners, who are going to want rather more hand-holding than Simon has to offer. However, for anyone who is reasonably confident with their medium and materials, both books are an invaluable source of reference material as well as guides to methods of working.

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