Hyper Realistic Drawing || Amie Howard

Coloured pencils lend themselves to detail work, but the processes involved can be off-putting for those new to the technique. I’m avoiding saying “beginner” because I think this is something it would be unwise to embark on without at least a moderate amount of skill in the first place. Try to run before you can walk and you’ll be discouraged by falling at the first hurdle, to mix a few metaphors.

This is, however, an eminently accessible book. A series of short, reasonably simple projects leads you gently in and it would possible to complete them in hours rather than days. The introductory sections also provide a solid grounding in technique and Amie will guide you patiently through some basic exercises that develop that all-important initial facility. No corners are cut here – for once, the reader can be glad of a bit of expansion before getting on to the main meat of the book.

The main demonstrations themselves are not progressive, so this is not a book you either need, or will want, to work through in order. Subjects include fur, feathers, eyes, lips, leaves, fruit and still life objects, each one adding a particular characteristic or technique. Some are quite small – an eye or an ear, for instance. Others are more involved, such as a cat’s face or a wrapped sweet, which involves some complicated shading that presents more challenges than you might initially think,

Although none of the projects is laboured, you are definitely not short-changed on the instruction, nor will you feel a lack of intervening steps. There is a fine balance between illustrating every mark and jumping too far ahead, with an entire section left in mid-air. It’s that patience I mentioned earlier, a sense of a teacher who allows you to work at your own pace, only appearing at your elbow when you need them.

As a primer in a very specific, but rewarding, technique, this isn’t just hard, but maybe impossible to beat.

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Drawing Animal Portraits in Coloured Pencil || Lisa Ann Watkins

Themes, subjects and media go in cycles, and coloured pencil is having its moment in the sun again. This is no bad thing, because it’s a medium that requires little in the way of equipment and is highly portable, meaning you can work almost anywhere. On top of that, as printing tolerances improve, it’s possible to reproduce on the page the fine detail pencils allow; this is a book that sparkles in that respect.

Let’s assume, therefore, that you’re on board with the medium and subject matter presented here. You’ve also skimmed through the technical introduction because there’s never not something interesting, and perhaps new to you, to be found. Given the level of work here, you’re not a beginner, so the basic techniques are, even if not second nature, at least familiar. What you want now is to feel comfortable with your tutor and to get just the right amount of instruction to be able to follow the demonstrations and projects presented. As we’ve already cut to the chase once, we can do so again – you won’t be disappointed and should feel right at home.

This is not the first book on animal drawing, so we should look for individualities. In that respect, the word Portrait in the title is significant. These are head and shoulder images that capture the character of the subject. I really, really want to say “sitter”, but you’re going to need a photograph for that. And, yes, Lisa does indeed work from photographs. The technical introduction includes some rather useful tips on getting the photo right in the first place and also on using software to combine images for dual portraits. She also suggests reducing a colour image to line to help with the initial outline drawing. I haven’t seen that in a book where it’s not the main subject before and it’s an extremely useful addition, especially when working from photographs is essential to the subject matter.

The drawings themselves include a good variety of creatures (although not the donkeys on the cover). It’s worth saying that, although horses and cattle are here, dogs and cats predominate. Lisa goes into considerable detail about fur and hair (no feathers here) as well as features such as eyes, noses and ears. There are enlarged illustrations at all the points you need them. Lisa is a thoughtful teacher who has an excellent sense of exactly those points where a student is going to need help or a nudge.

In terms of style, as befits a portrait, backgrounds are largely neutral, but without the pitfall of looking like a blank card. The use of colour can surprise you – careful combinations of greens and reds are frequently used to create realistic shades and shading. Highlights, in the eyes especially, add character as well as that sparkle I referred to earlier.

Production-wise, the book has soft covers that open easily and deep flaps that make it feel nice in the hand. Obviously, it’s the content that matters, but ergonomics have a strong part to play in the way we react to a book and this one ticks all the right boxes. A lot of thought has clearly gone into it.

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Chinese Brush Painting Through The Seasons

It’s been a long time since there was a book on Chinese painting, but they were once all the rage. This one has been worth the wait and is about as authentic as you can get, being adapted from a series of Chinese originals.

For all that, the approach is accessible for the Western reader and, although the introduction to materials contains some terms that may not be familiar, more obtainable alternatives are suggested. Interestingly, where colour is used, the authors prefer gouache as being more like the heavier pigment used in China itself. Previous, more Western-based books have used transparent watercolour.

The book consists of a series of simple demonstrations and, of course, simplification is very much to the fore. As a result, although each project is covered in no more than three or four pages, there is no sense of foreshortening and the number of steps is perfectly adequate. Chinese art involves working quickly and there simply isn’t that much to do – there’s no room for fiddling when you’re contending with a large, soft brush.

This is a welcome return to the world of Chinese painting which, even if you don’t want to pursue it in much depth, offers palate-cleansing simplification that can only refresh your own work.

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Charles Evans’ Watercolour Rescue

The history of art publishing is littered with hints and tips books, Q&A guides and troubleshooters. This is not dissimilar to all those approaches, but comes with a reassuring title and the provenance of a popular and established tutor. Charles’ reputation rightly precedes him.

The first thing to say is that this is much more than just a lazy rehash of what has been done before, which my earlier description might have suggested. The implication in the title that things can and do go wrong is an honest one and we’re starting from a point which doesn’t pretend the opposite. What really marks the book out as different, though, is that the “mistakes” aren’t just cartoon versions painted deliberately badly to make a point. In fact, just glancing through, you might wonder what exactly the problem is. This is because not everything is wrong at once. That inharmonious landscape looks relatively acceptable until Charles points out that the blue used for the water is too deep. The revised version, using slightly less pigment is better, but not the game changer you’ll usually find in this kind of book.

There are 75 suggestions in this pocket-sized book, which has a nicely soft cover that makes reading without breaking the spine easy. None occupies more than 4 pages, and frequently less. It’s succinct – identify, analyse, get out. Where the sections are longer, a little more work is required and there may be half a dozen or so stages. For the most part, it’s a simple fix, largely because the error (if we can call it that) is relatively minor.

You could, I suppose, pack this with your painting kit and take it on location with you. Whether you really pull out a portable library on your travels, I doubt. I think the best approach would be to keep it by your chair or bed and dip into it. You’ll have plenty of “oh, that’s where I’m going wrong” moments and simply not make that mistake again. You might even get some ideas for new approaches as well. It’s fun, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

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The Life of Mark Akenside || Barbara C Morden

Throughout history, there have been figures that, while now largely forgotten, were instrumental in oiling the wheels of events and influencing the cultural and political life of their time.

In the Seventeenth Century, John Ogiliby was at the heart of royal events up to the deposition of Charles I and then effectively ran communications, at considerable risk, for those who were planning the return of the monarchy. His chief visible legacy is Britannia, the first road atlas, whose style can be seen to influence most others, right down to the last Ordnance Survey One Inch series. It was in fact a guide for an anticipated Catholic invasion after the installation of Charles II as absolute monarch.

A hundred years later, Mark Akenside, who trained as a barber-surgeon, was one of the formative figures of the Romantic movement. Born in Newcastle, he is commemorated in Akenside Hill, formerly Butchers Bank, where a literary group gathered in 1821 to celebrate the centenary of his birth.

Akenside was a poet as well as a man of medicine and his volume The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744) was one of the founding works of the Romantic movement which celebrated nature with a spiritual and emotional, rather than a utilitarian, response. Politically a Whig, he opposed and satirised Robert Walpole, along with Alexander Pope (in The Dunciad). Later, his life would be written by Samuel Johnson who, although he disliked blank verse and Whig politics, came to admire the quality of Akenside’s work in spite of those preferences.

Having moved to London, he became part of the circle of Keats and Lamb, both of whom recognised his rejection of classical forms and were influenced in their own writings. He was later himself satirised in Tobias Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle – a mark, if it were needed, of his prominence and influence.

This thoroughly readable account of Akenside’s life, work and place in the artistic canon includes much detail without getting lost or bogged down. Barbara Morden goes on to demonstrate Akenside’s influence on Wordsworth and Coleridge, in particular the Lyrical Ballads. The chapters are short, but well organised, and I particularly like the summary at the head of each one, something which would have graced books of Akenside’s time and is useful even today.

Those who operate behind the scenes are frequently just footnotes in histories of their time, but Barbara has rescued a man who deserves to be more widely known and has done him ample justice. The subtitle, Breakthrough to Modernity provides a strong clue to Akenside’s relevance today.

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Watercolour: the natural world || Tim Pond

An artist’s second book can be a challenge. Quite often, they’ve said as much as they can already and, if the subject is predominantly the same, finding a different approach that doesn’t simply repeat what’s gone before can be tricky. In his previous book, Tim pretty much wrote the definitive guide to animal drawing. True, we have a change of medium here, but the style is the broadly the same and The Field Guide to Drawing and Sketching Animals certainly didn’t lack colour.

So, Tim had a hard act to follow and quite a mountain to climb. It’s therefore a pleasure to say that, in terms of absolute triumph, Tim has scored again. A change of publisher has certainly helped, because of the shift of editorial and design priorities that brings. There is a further change of emphasis in the arrangement of the book, which is now both by season and habitat. The way books are ordered is sometimes a conceit, just a way of putting one thing after another, but this makes complete sense as you get those creatures you’re likely to find together all in the same place and also relates fur, plumage and behaviour to the time of year. It’s also noticeable that there’s a lot less anatomy in this book than there was in the previous one. It’s not lacking completely, and there when you need it but, if you want lessons on structure, see previous.

This is also, as the title implies, not just a book about animals and, when ordering by habitat, Tim also includes lessons on related matters such as deciduous trees, rainforests and savannahs. He even takes time out to explain why leaves turn brown in Autumn; it’s not essential, but piques the interest and improves your overall understanding and immersion in the subject.

The studies, lessons, exercises and demonstrations mostly occupy no more than a couple of pages, thoughtfully arranged as a spread so that you can see everything at once. Tim’s style is at once precise and yet also slightly impressionistic – he doesn’t get every detail of hair or feather with a quadruple-nought brush. The result is creatures and their surroundings that have a sense of life and potential movement that should appeal to the artist rather than the zoologist.

This is a remarkably thorough and enjoyable book that will have instant appeal to any wildlife artist, but also instruct those for whom the subject is perhaps more peripheral. To do this twice in two books is no small achievement.

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The Watercolour Companion || Matthew Palmer

There’s something about this little book that you instinctively want to like. It just feels right the moment you pick it up and this is not accidental, but rather a perfect meeting of author, editor, design and production.

Content-wise, it falls into the basic hints and tips category, but covers a very broad range of watercolour techniques and subjects, arranged as a reference that you can call on for help or inspiration, or just dip into in quiet moments to spark your own thoughts and ideas. It would have been easy to make the result a lot bigger, with more examples and variations, but this is a vade mecum, something to be carried with you out in the field. It’s small enough to fit into a pocket, slim enough not to make an inconvenient bulge or weigh you down on one side and even has an elastic closure so that it doesn’t flap about awkwardly. All of these things could be tropes or gimmicks, but they serve an obvious purpose and add to the general appeal. The binding is also sewn – something of a luxury these days, which means that the pages fall open without having to be coerced, making one-handed use perfectly feasible. There’s even a handy viewfinder in a pocket at the back. I’m not even sure that all this adds significantly to the price, which is just under a tenner. That’s not bad these days.

Matthew is an excellent explainer and he covers an awful lot of ground in a very small space – which, of course, also leaves no room for over-working, either of examples or writing. Coverage includes colour, brushwork, choice of subject, skies, light, flowers, trees, buildings, water, people and special effects. Although there’s no index, each section is concise and the contents page allows you to navigate quickly.

Will you really drop what you’re doing and look a technique up in the middle of furious creativity? Only you can decide. I think you’re more likely to dip into it as I suggested, possibly just before turning the light out at bedtime. Who knows, you may wake up with the perfect image in your head and know instinctively how to achieve it.

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The Kew Book of Botanical Illustration || Christabel King

This thoroughly worthwhile guide has been reissued in paperback. You can read my original review here.

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Textured Art || Melissa McKinnon

In over four decades of writing about art books, this is only the second book I can remember that’s been entirely devoted to the technique of painting with a knife. The first was entirely devoted to oils and very serious indeed, as was the way with such books at the time.

It would not be unfair to say that David & Charles in their current incarnation produce books that are quite elementary and aimed at the more general craft-oriented reader than the committed, more advanced worker. This, therefore, is a project-based book aimed at producing attractive results reasonably quickly. What it is not, however, is superficial and the variety of images and ways of working will be of use to pretty much anyone who works with plastic media and wants to explore methods of impasto in more detail. Although Melissa works here in acrylics, the techniques can easily be applied to oils with no adaptation other than the use of different mediums, and maybe a little more ventilation

Melissa’s subjects are predominantly skies, flowers and trees, but also with some broader landscapes and her images are a great deal more than simple technical exercises that leave you feeling you want more. As well as knives and heavy impasto, she also adds brushwork that softens edges and details and creates recession. The exercises and demonstrations have been photographed in a raking light that reproduces the textures well and there’s never any doubt what’s going on or, for that matter, why. Melissa uses quite a bright palette but, if this isn’t to your taste, any competent artist would be able to adapt quickly.

This is more than a primer and worth waiting those few decades for.

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Sketchbook Challenge || Susan Yeates

This is a further addition to the increasing line of project-based books aimed at what I think we can fairly describe as the occasional user. People who, perhaps, like the idea of art without being absolutely devoted to it.

For them, I’m pretty sure this is absolutely perfect. Subtitled 100 prompts for daily drawing, it’s exactly that. Simple ideas along the lines of “why not do this?”, with a text that tells you little more than that it might be a good idea and an example or two that, to be perfectly honest, look a bit rushed. If the idea is that you don’t have to produce great works of art, Susan has hit the spot perfectly, and I mean that positively, not as a veiled insult. No-one benefits from the “not for the likes of you” approach.

The ideas cover pretty much everything, from shapes to everyday objects, animals, flowers and even just the things you find in your pocket. Would you, the committed artist, benefit from it? Well, this isn’t the first book to suggest ideas for drawing based on what’s in front of you, either as a way of learning or to break through creative block. A professional artist once said to me, “if I get one idea from a book, it’s been worth it”, so you might think that this offers a fresh approach that stimulates your creativity. You might, of course, also find it just plain annoying and vow to do better, which has just achieved the same result. Chicken dinners all round, I think.

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