How to See, How to Draw: Keys to Realistic Drawing


Claudia Nice - 2010
    With Claudia's help, you can do it! In How to See, How to Draw, you will discover how to tap into your powers of observation, strengthen your hand-eye connection, and draw the world around you with new skill and accuracy. Just take it one step at a time.Claudia is an expert teacher, breaking down complex compositions into a series of achievable shapes and values that even beginners will understand. Through dozens of mini demonstrations, fun-to-do exercises and complete step-by-step instruction, you'll learn everything from basic drawing techniques to more challenging methods for rendering wonderfully rich, in-depth compositions.Her visual instruction details how to:Use a variety of drawing tools to suit your style and artistic intentLearn to let go of preconceived ideas so you can observe lines, shapes and spatial relationships as they actually areCreate strong compositions through comparison and proportional controlFind, fix and avoid common mistakes by using simple grids and guide linesUnderstand and work with perspective to create the illusion of depthReveal form through light and shadowExplore the potential of texture to create mood and movementClaudia's drawings illuminate a range of subjects, including portraits, landscapes, animals and still life. You can practice using her reference photos and drawings, or you can apply her exercises to your own subjects.Start today, Claudia's way! Following her masterful guidance, you'll see the world through new eyes and draw better than you ever have before.

Making Faces: Drawing Expressions for Comics and Cartoons


8fish - 2008
    But face it, your stories can only get so far with happy, sad and angry. In order to give your characters some character, you need to know what they look like when they're about to sneeze, when they smell something stinky or when they're flirting, horrified or completely blotto. Lucky for you, that's what this book is all about!Making Faces contains everything you need to give your characters a wide range of expressions!Part 1: The Basics. How to draw heads, mouths, noses and eyes, and how they change shape when they move.Part 2: The Faces. Over 50 step-by-step demonstrations for a variety of expressions divided into scenarios. Each scenario shows four or five expressions from a single character, from simple emotions to more subtle and complex variations, so you see how a face changes with each emotion. Sidebars illustrate the same expressions on a variety of other characters.Part 3: Storytelling.How to move your story along using expression, point of view, body language and composition. See how it all comes together with damsels in distress, a noir-style interrogation, a Western standoff and other situations.Illustrated with a diverse cast of characters from hobos to superheroes to teenage girls, this guide will help you create the looks that say it all.

The Natural Way to Draw


Kimon Nicolaides - 1941
    Great for the beginner and the expert, this book offers readers exercises to improve their work.

Morpho: Anatomy for Artists


Michel Lauricella - 2017
    In more than 1000 illustrations, the human body is shown from a new perspective—from bone structure to musculature, from anatomical detail to the body in motion. Morpho is a rich, fascinating, and helpful book that can go with you everywhere on your sketching journey.

The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation


Frank Thomas - 1981
    The authors, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, worked with Walt Disney himself as well as other leading figures in a half-century of Disney films. They personally animated leading characters in most of the famous films and have decades of close association with the others who helped perfect this extremely difficult and time-consuming art form. Not to be mistaken for just a "how-to-do-it," this voluminously illustrated volume (like the classic Disney films themselves) is intended for everyone to enjoy.Besides relating the painstaking trial-and-error development of Disney's character animation technology, this book irresistibly charms us with almost an overabundance of the original historic drawings used in creating some of the best-loved characters in American culture: Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, Snow White and Bambi (among many, many others) as well as early sketches used in developing memorable sequences from classic features such as Fantasia and Pinocchio. With the full cooperation of Walt Disney Productions and free access to the studio's priceless archives, the authors took unparalleled advantage of their intimate long-term experience with animated films to choose the precise drawings to illustrate their points from among hundreds of thousands of pieces of artwork carefully stored away.The book answers everybody's question about how the amazingly lifelike effects of Disney character animation were achieved, including charming stories of the ways that many favorite animated figures got their unique personalities. From the perspective of two men who had an important role in shaping the art of animation, and within the context of the history of animation and the growth of the Disney studio, this is the definitive volume on the work and achievement of one of America's best-known and most widely loved cultural institutions. Nostalgia and film buffs, students of popular culture, and that very broad audience who warmly responds to the Disney "illusion of life" will find this book compelling reading (and looking!).Searching for that perfect gift for the animation fan in your life? Explore more behind-the-scenes stories from Disney Editions:The Art of Mulan: A Disney Editions ClassicWalt Disney's Ultimate Inventor: The Genius of Ub IwerksOne Day at Disney: Meet the People Who Make the Magic Across the GlobeThe Walt Disney Studios: A Lot to RememberFrom All of Us to All of You: The Disney Christmas CardInk & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney's AnimationOswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons, Revised Special EditionDisney Villains: Delightfully Evil - The Creation, The Inspiration, The FascinationThe Art and Flair of Mary Blair: An Appreciation, Updated Edition

Figure It Out!: The Beginner's Guide to Drawing People


Christopher Hart - 2009
    Not only does he draw them with incredible style and flair, he also has a friendly, accessible teaching style that makes his how-to books super-sellers. In this unique figure-drawing course, Chris avoids the usual anatomy lessons that intimidate aspiring artists and gets right down to the basics young illustrators need to get started. Starting with heads and facial expressions, he moves on to full figures, male and female, ideal and average, some in fashion poses and others in dynamic action. On every page, his practical advice and clear examples will help readers achieve terrific results — and have fun every step of the way.

The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain


Betty Edwards - 1979
    In 1989, when Dr. Betty Edwards revised the book, it went straight to the Times list again. Now Dr. Edwards celebrates the twentieth anniversary of her classic book with a second revised edition.Over the last decade, Dr. Edwards has refined her material through teaching hundreds of workshops and seminars. Truly The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, this edition includes:the very latest developments in brain researchnew material on using drawing techniques in the corporate world and in educationinstruction on self-expression through drawingan updated section on using colordetailed information on using the five basic skills of drawing for problem solving

Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters: 100 Great Drawings Analyzed, Figure Drawing Fundamentals Defined


Robert Beverly Hale - 1964
    With detailed analytical captions and diagrams, every lesson is clearly delineated and illustrated. Throughout, also, is commentary that sheds light on the creative process of drawing and offers deep insight into the unsurpassed achievements of the masters.

The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression


Gary Faigin - 1990
    It centres on the muscles of expression and their effects as a basis for understanding and analyzing those expressions they see on models and in photographs. Artists will be aided in understanding expression and in creating expression. The book is organized around three parts - part one analyzes the basic structures of the head, the fundamental forms of the skull and recurring proportions, all in preparation for understanding full facial expression in part three. Part two describes the muscles of expression in the three key parts of the face. In part three, the basic facial forms from part two are combined to form the six basic human expressions - joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust and surprise. Each expression is depicted in steadily increasing intensity. Examples of facial images are drawn from a variety of photographic art and artistic sources.

Cartoon Animation


Preston Blair - 1980
    By following his lessons, you can make any character—person, animal, or object—come to life through animated movement!Animation is the process of drawing and photographing a character in successive positions to create lifelike movement. Animators bring life to their drawings, making the viewer believe that the drawings actually think and have feelings. Cartoon Animation was written by an animator to help you learn how to animate. The pioneers of the art of animation learned many lessons, most through trial and error, and it is this body of knowledge that has established the fundamentals of animation. This book will teach you these fundamentals. Animators must first know how to draw; good drawing is the cornerstone of their success. The animation process, however, involves much more than just good drawing. This book teaches all the other knowledge and skills animators must have. In chapter one, Preston Blair shows how to construct original cartoon characters, developing a character’s shape, personality, features, and mannerisms. The second chapter explains how to create movements such as running, walking, dancing, posing, skipping, strutting, and more. Chapter three discusses the finer points of animating a character, including creating key character poses and in-betweens. Chapter four is all about dialogue, how to create realistic mouth and body movements, and facial expressions while the character is speaking. There are helpful diagrams in this chapter that show mouth positions, along with a thorough explanation of how sounds are made using the throat, tongue, teeth, and lips. Finally, the fifth chapter has clear explanations of a variety of technical topics, including tinting and spacing patterns, background layout drawings, the cartoon storyboard, and the synchronization of camera, background, characters, sound, and music. Full of expert advice from Preston Blair, as well as helpful drawings and diagrams, Cartoon Animation is a book no animation enthusiast should be without.

The Art Spirit


Robert Henri - 1929
    While it embodies the entire system of his teaching, with much technical advice and critical comment for the student, it also contains inspiration for those to whom the happiness to be found through all the arts is important.No other American painter attracted such a large, intensely personal group of followers as Henri, whose death in 1929 brought to an end a life that has been completely devoted to art. He was an inspired artist and teacher who believed that everyone is vitally concerned in the happiness and wisdom to be found through the arts. Many of his paintings have been acquired by museums and private collectors. Among them are the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Wichita Art Museum, and Yale University Art Gallery.

The Art of Perspective: The Ultimate Guide for Artists in Every Medium


Phil Metzger - 2007
    In this comprehensive guide, Phil Metzger demystifies perspective, presenting it simply as a matter of mimicking the way we see--like the way a distant mountain appears blue, or a road seems to narrow in the distance.The Art of Perspective offers simple but powerful techniques for achieving a convincing illusion of depth and distance, whether it's a few inches in a still life or miles in a landscape.- Start simple, with atmospheric perspective and intuitive techniques, and gradually progress to linear perspective and more complex challenges such as stairways, curves and reflections. - Use the engaging, step-by-step demonstrations and exercises to try out each essential concept for yourself, making lessons clearer and more memorable. - Learn theories that apply to all mediums, with specific advice for achieving effects using acrylic, oil, watercolor and pencil. - Get the inside scoop on professional tricks and shortcuts that make perspective easier than ever! Forget everything you think you know (or don't know) about perspective. This book builds an easy-to-follow, ground-up understanding of how to turn a flat painting or drawing surface into a living, breathing, dimensional scene that lures viewers in. No matter how you look at it, it's the ultimate guide to perspective for artists of every medium and skill level.

The Complete Guide to Anatomy for Artists & Illustrators


Gottfried Bammes - 1986
    NA

The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook


Alan Lee - 2005
    These images would prove so powerful and evocative that they would eventually define the look of Peter Jackson's movie trilogy and earn him a coveted Academy Award.The book is filled with more than 150 of his sketches and early conceptual pieces showing how the project progressed from idea to finished art. It also contains a selection of full-page paintings reproduced in full color, together with numerous examples of previously unseen conceptual art produced for the films and many new works drawn specially for this book.The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook provides a fascinating insight into the imagination of the man who painted Tolkien's vision, first on the page and then in three dimensions on the movie screen. It will also be of interest to many of the thousands of people who have bought the illustrated Lord of the Rings as well as to budding artists who want to unlock the secrets of book illustration.

The Book of a Hundred Hands


George B. Bridgman - 1920
    Bridgman states unequivocally in his introduction that before preparing this book he had "not discovered a single volume devoted exclusively to the depicting of the hand." Apparently Mr. Bridgman has appreciated what few others have felt — the human hand's great capacity for expression and the care that the artist must take to realize it. The hand changes with the age of the person, is shaped differently according to sex, reflects the type of work to which it is put, the physical health, and even the emotions of the person. To represent these distinguishing features, to capture the expressiveness of a particular pair of hands, the artist must understand the construction, anatomy, formation, and function of the hand.There is probably no better instructor to turn to for this understanding than Mr. Bridgman, a well-respected artist who for nearly 50 years lectured and taught at the Art Students League of New York. In this volume, a full text is accompanied by many illustrations depicting virtually every aspect and posture of the human hand. He first considers the back view of the hand, the wrist bones, the tendons, the muscles, the hand bones, the arch, and the veins; and then those of the palm. Throughout he pictures the musculature at work beneath the surface of the skin. He continues by showing how the muscles operate on the thumb side and on the little finger side when each is the center of force; how the thumb and fingers are constructed, their freedom of movement, joints, and complete anatomy as well as views of them straight, bent, and flexed; how the knuckles are formed, what shapes the fist can take and how flexible it can be; and he concludes with illustrations of the total movement, either turning or rotary, of the hand in its various positions.The 100 illustrations the author has selected perfectly define the regions of the hand so that any artist, beginning or experienced, will increase his mastery of it. Better rendering of the human hand is sure to add new expressiveness to your human figures along with new forcefulness and new interest.