YarnsandFabrics.co.uk
Fantastic value for money. Giovanni always delivers with such detail and focus and offers tips and advice to achieve skill in drawing figures. A great resource for any artist with numerous examples of work. Includes anatomical drawing, form, hatching, proportion, structure, perspective, foreshortening, poses, drapery, parts of the body and step-by-step examples. The format is small, the type is small, everything is in black and white and the contents are superb.
Rachel Kelly
Wow, what more can I say? This is the definitive guide to have with you at all times, regardless of what level you are at in your life drawing/figure drawing career. With hundreds of fantastic images by the artist, illustrating each point he makes-and rather excitingly I thought, there's a complete anatomical drawing section at the beginning of the book-detailing skeletal structure, muscule striations and even naming the areas and showing their thickness beneath the skin! As a former scientist and current art student, I found this blend of anatomy and drawing techniques to be incredibl pleasing. I've only had this book a few days but I have a feeling that I will be using this book again and again throughout my artistic life.
Sharon Douglas
can honestly say, hand on heart, that this is one of the best, if not THE best book, I have ever read on figure drawing. I have just begun a fine art degree, and a big part of the course is figure drawing. Our tutors recommended some books for us to look up, but none of them were as good as this. This book is truly fascinating, it starts with the skeleton, and builds layer upon layer. It covers everything from the skeleton, to muscles, balance, hands and feet, it also has a section on heads and faces and the clothed figure too.
Artbookreview.net
Im not normally a fan of smaller-format bind-ups. The original books were the way they were for a reason and smaller pages and thick spines can make for difficult reading. All too often, they look like the sort of bumper value nonsense someone else would buy for you and which just sits on the shelf taking up space.
So, its a pleasure to be able to welcome this one. The Giovanni Civardi drawing books are a valuable resource, and there are a lot of them. This compilation includes seven, which would cost you the wrong side of sixty quid to buy individually. £12.99 for a bulk deal is a real bargain, especially as the result is actually usable. Id like to say that Search Press have taken my previous criticisms of this kind of thing on board, but its probably more to do with the happenstance of production. What seems to have happened is that thinner paper and cover card have been used, meaning that the book falls open easily and isnt too heavy to hold. Itll even, more or less, lay flat by itself without breaking the spine. The smaller format also adds to the manageability: 440 A4 pages would make for a coffee table book, which this emphatically isnt.
So, what do you get? Well, not Giovannis complete output, for sure. However, the selection is nicely thought-out and makes for a book that lives up to its own billing of being the complete guide. Drawing Techniques is a useful introduction. Further chapters are Understanding Human Form & Structure, The Nude, Sketching People, Heads & Faces, Drawing Hands & Feet and Clothing on Figures. Its worth a complete list to show just how nicely this progresses.
If you havent already got an extensive collection of the separate volumes, and youre looking for a good primer on figure drawing, buy this. Its very reasonably priced and so practical as to be ridiculously good value.
