Leisure Painter, The
Dec 13
Susie Hodge shows us how to draw people in this new addition to the How to Draw series. These books really do break it down to the absolute basics. Text features on just one of the 32 pages. Apart from this introduction, the drawings do all the talking. Six stages per page take you from a simple stick outline to the finished coloured drawing, featuring children, men and women of all ages in various poses walking, dancing, sitting, playing sport, skipping and knitting. It may be simple instruction, but complete beginners can get great results.
Artbookreview.net
Aug 13
I always said I wasnt going to review this series because it has no words, so youre really left with not a lot to talk about. However, I caved in when it got to Insects because, if a series gets that esoteric, it pretty much has to be popular. I mean, not only was it the only book on that subject (exclusively) Ive seen, but its not exactly first-choice, is it? So here we have people. They must have done that one before, surely? Or was is a morning-after editorial meeting? No, weve got to do the insects first. Have you been watching Dr Who again? Yes, MALCOLM TUCKER!!!* (Sorry, but I really am excited about this). For those of you who dont know, the stock-in-trade of this series is a single page which starts off with the simplest outlines, then builds up a basic shape and works it, in six steps, into a finished drawing. For a subject as complex as the human figure, that does mean theres an awful lot left out and some pretty giant leaps of the imagination, but it does work surprisingly well. If your main problem is getting started, then this is definitely the book for you and Susie does a fantastic job of choosing exactly which stages to illustrate so that you do get a genuine feeling of progression rather than giant steps. The only fly in the ointment is that I wish each demonstration had stopped at the fifth stage, the finished drawing, because these are in every case beautiful and sensitive works in pencil that need no further embellishment. The series, however, demands a colour finale and this is done by adding (what I think is) a completely unnecessary wash that covers the pencil lines and makes the whole thing, in almost all cases, look heavy and clumsy. I dont think its a problem with Susies work with a wash, I just think it doesnt work with whats gone before. A couple of examples. Theres a woman sitting knitting. Perfectly fine in the drawing, but the colour wash leaves a chair shell fall off if she moves and which doesnt look strong enough to support its own weight, let alone hers. And the man with the stick. Im sorry, but that thing is two inches in diameter, its nearly as thick as his arm! This is a quibble, but I do think its best to ignore stage six and just stop at five. Treat this as what it claims to be, a book about drawing and put your paint box away. You get a fantastic variety of figures and poses, both static and in motion and a stripped-down approach that simply dissolves so much of the mystique that always surrounds figure drawing. * Peter Capaldi, Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It, was announced as the new Dr Who yesterday.
