Archive for category Author: Carole Massey
The Beginner’s Guide to Drawing Portraits || Carole Massey
Posted by Henry in Author: Carole Massey, Medium: Drawing, Publisher: Search Press, Subject: Children, Subject: Portraiture on Feb 2, 2021
If publishers ask (and they do periodically), my advice with older books is to leave them as they were. The idea of re-editing something into a new product never really works. It’s a bit like trying to turn a shirt into a pair of trousers. Even if you have enough material, the pieces will never be quite the right shape and the old seams will never lie quite flat. There’ll be compromises, gaps and false joins that’ll always be unsatisfactory. That applies to the trousers as well.
This started life in the Drawing Masterclass series, but has been completely restructured and what you now have is effectively a new book. The last time Search Press did this, I raised a quizzical eyebrow because all they’d really done was change the title. This is a complete re-working and a great deal of credit must go to Carole Massey who has done the heavy lifting here. She has not only added new material, but re-written and simplified to an amazing extent. Concentrating on the head and shoulders simplifies things immeasurably – you can forget about hands, feet, clothes and posture, for instance. It also allows her to concentrate on the form, features and expressions of the face, which is mainly what the book is about.
This is not so much a course as an examination of the way portraits are built up. Although the way through it is progressive – you’re always building on and reinforcing what you learnt before, there aren’t the same number of examples, exercises and demonstrations. They’re there, and you’ll find them, but in a less structured way. It’s very subtle how the material you need is to hand just when you want it, rather than when you’ve come to expect it.
There’s an excellent variety of gender, ethnicity, shape, form and age here. Carole is particularly good with babies and children and you could justify the relatively modest cover price for that alone.
This is probably one of the best introductions to portrait drawing around and the fact that it uses recycled material is probably only of interest to reviewers like me. You won’t see the joins.
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Acrylic Painting Step-by-Step || Wendy Jelbert, Carole Massey, David Hyde
Posted by Henry in Author: Carole Massey, Author: David Hyde, Author: Wendy Jelbert, Medium: Acrylic, Publisher: Search Press, Subject: Techniques on Jul 17, 2019
A reissue of an earlier compilation. You can read the original review here. There doesn’t appear to be any re-origination and the image quality isn’t really up to modern standards, however.
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Drawing for the Absolute Beginner || Carole Massey
Posted by Henry in Author: Carole Massey, Medium: Drawing, Publisher: Search Press, Series: Absolute Beginner, Subject: Techniques on Apr 18, 2018
This is quite the best introduction to drawing I’ve seen. Carole has a simple, unfussy style and she’s also very good at simplification – reducing subjects to their essence, avoiding unnecessary detail, working loosely and explaining simple shapes and their relationships.
Although it has the same series title as its watercolour and acrylics cousins, it isn’t associated with the SAA. Although the cover doesn’t mention tracings, they are there and are helpful when laying out some of the more complex subjects.
There’s plenty to get your teeth into, from basic techniques to outlines, hatching, shading and the use of colour. Subjects range from landscapes, trees and water to figures and animals (both static and moving) and buildings.
Like the rest of the series, this is well thought-through and will take you from first steps and on to some really quite advanced work.
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Portraits (Drawing Masterclass) || Carole Massey
Posted by Henry in Author: Carole Massey, Medium: Drawing, Publisher: Search Press, Series: Drawing Masterclass, Subject: Portraiture on Jun 11, 2012
Carole Massey packs a huge amount of material and ideas into a comparatively short 96 pages and this is one of the best books on portrait drawing that I’ve seen.
The problem that any book on portraiture has to overcome is that it’s full of pictures of people that you’ve never met, in contrast to the subjects you’re going to find in front of you. Carole counters this with a good variety of examples, male and female, young and old and with different skin tones, facial shapes and hair types. To borrow the old News of the World slogan, all human life (pretty much) is here.
The book is also full of demonstrations, examples, tips and exercises. One of the nice features is that every page feels different. All books are designed to a basic page layout, but this one is so flexible that the whole thing feels like a voyage of discovery and I think you’ll be finding new delights long after you first opened the cover.
“Masterclass” is a movable feast, but this is a book which lives up to a difficult billing. Essential reading.
Drawing Step-by-Step
Posted by Henry in Author: Carole Massey, Author: Denis John-Naylor, Author: Richard Box, Author: Ronald Swanwick, Author: Sally Michel, Medium: Drawing, Publisher: Search Press on Oct 13, 2009
This is one of those bind-ups of smaller titles that Search Press does from time to time and does rather well. It’s not at all obvious that this is a collection of books which have previously appeared in the Leisure Arts series and material which would normally repeat from one to the other has been removed so that, for example, you only get one introduction to materials, not several authors saying virtually the same thing. I’d tell you how many different books you get for your money if I could but, frankly, I can’t spot the joins. At £12.99, they’re excellent value for money as long as you don’t already have a comprehensive collection of the originals.
Acrylic Painting Step-by-Step
Posted by Henry in Author: Carole Massey, Author: David Hyde, Author: Wendy Jelbert, Medium: Acrylic, Publisher: Search Press on Oct 13, 2009
This is one of those bind-ups of smaller titles that Search Press does from time to time and does rather well. It’s not at all obvious that this is a collection of books which have previously appeared in the Leisure Arts series and material which would normally repeat from one to the other has been removed so that, for example, you only get one introduction to materials, not several authors saying virtually the same thing. I’d tell you how many different books you get for your money if I could but, frankly, I can’t spot the joins. At £12.99, they’re excellent value for money as long as you don’t already have a comprehensive collection of the originals.
Artbookreview.net 