Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I purchased this book because it provides a quick and dirty run down of the different forms of media one can use to draw a picture. In the first section of the book, it talks about the tools you can use: graphite, colored pencils, pastels, ink, markers, charcoal and sanguine-just to name a few. It also tells you what type of paper goes best with each drawing material as well as the type of eraser is best to use. There is a section value and modeling, as well. The next couple of the sections deal with techiques that are specific to each medium. For example, coloring by strokes and blending charcoal and pastels with fingers and stumping pencils. In the sections on techniques, step-by-step exercises are provided to demonstrate how the author got from a blank sheet of paper to a replication of a famous work of art done in that same medium. However, during the demonstrations (I assume in the interests of brevity and page space)he may skip a little too much. This may not bother some people, but I'm a "I follow the recipie to the letter" type of person when it comes to something I don't know how to do. In spite of that I still rate this book 5 stars for several reasons: I like they way they show you pictures of the tools and tell you what they are and how to use them (for example, my high school art teacher said under no circumstances to smudge with my fingers for shading--he mainly said to crosshatch. As a result, I had no idea what a stumping pencil was and that my fingers were capable of such nice smudging.) Secondly, I like the way the book mentions some of the top brands for different media and shows what some of these sets look like. And thirdly, despite the flaw in the exercises, it was still fascinating to see the transformation. (I haven't done one to completion as I've only had the book for two weeks and I wanted to read through it first.) After reading the book, I know what materials I need to get started and I have a manual to help me practice.
I've always been pretty good at basic to intermediate graphite sketches and I wanted to take my drawings to the next level. If you're a beginner or an advanced beginner, then this book will probably help you. If everything I have written here is old hat to you, then you should probably look for something more advanced. As I said this book is a quick and dirty break-down of different drawing media and their techinques. It does not attempt to give in depth information on all media and the techniques associated with them.
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As part of the All About Techniques series, this book is among Barron's more advanced art instruction manuals. As the newest in this color-illustrated series, All About Techniques in Drawing will instruct you on how to achieve highly finished illustrations in a variety of media, including pencil, charcoal, chalk, and ink. You will also be advised on the uses of various grades of paper and the many different drawing tools and their uses.
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