The Simple Secret to Better Painting


Greg Albert - 2003
    It's an insightful artistic philosophy that boils down the many technical principles of composition into a single master rule that's easy to remember and apply: Never make any two intervals the same.You can make every painting more interesting, dynamic and technically sound by varying intervals of distance, length and space, as well as intervals of value and color. The rule also applies to balance, shape and the location of your painting's focal point.Greg Albert illustrates these lessons with eye-opening examples from both beginning and professional artists, including Frank Webb, Tony Couch, Kevin Macpherson, Charles Reid, Tony Van Hasselt and more.You'll discover that the ONE RULE is the only rule of composition you need to immediately improve your work - the moment your brush touches the canvas.

Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers


Marcos Mateu-Mestre - 2010
    Using his experiences from working in the comic book industry, movie studios and teaching, Marcos introduces the reader to a step-by-step system that will create the most successful storyboards and graphics for the best visual communication.After a brief discussion on narrative art, Marcos introduces us to drawing and composing a single image, to composing steady shots to drawing to compose for continuity between all the shots. These lessons are then applied to three diverse story lines – a train accident, a cowboy tale and bikers approaching a mysterious house.In addition to setting up the shots, he also explains and illustrates visual character development, emotive stances and expressions along with development of the environmental setting to fully develop the visual narrative.

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way


Stan Lee - 1977
    Stan Lee, the Mighty Man from Marvel, and John Buscema, active and adventuresome artist behind the Silver Surfer, Conan the Barbarian, the Mighty Thor and Spider-Man, have collaborated on this comics compendium: an encyclopedia of information for creating your own superhero comic strips. Using artwork from Marvel comics as primary examples, Buscema graphically illustrates the hitherto mysterious methods of comic art. Stan Lee’s pithy prose gives able assistance and advice to the apprentice artist. Bursting with Buscema’s magnificent illustrations and Lee’s laudable word-magic, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way belongs in the library of everyone who has ever wanted to illustrate his or her own comic strip.

Fabulous Figures


Jane Davenport - 2018
    . . and end with a beautiful finished piece of art!You’ll love Jane Davenport’s fabulous, fun, and amazingly easy technique for drawing figures.   For aspiring artists, drawing people can be intimidating—but it doesn’t have to be. Over years working as a fashion illustrator, Jane Davenport devised her own method of creating in-proportion figures. Her clever core technique involves using equal-size hearts to build the body’s structure. And Jane’s results have been astounding: her students go from “I can’t draw a stick figure” to producing gorgeous, well-proportioned illustrations. After laying out the basics, her imaginative guide walks you through working with different mediums; drawing the head, face, clothing, hair, and features; and constructing figures inspired by fashion, fantasy, life drawing, and more.

Lessons in Classical Drawing: Essential Techniques from Inside the Atelier


Juliette Aristides - 2011
     The companion DVD enclosed inside, beautifully filmed in Florence, Italy, provides real-time drawing lessons so that any gaps in the learning process are filled in with live instruction.

Draw 50 Buildings and Other Structures: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Castles and Cathedrals, Skyscrapers and Bridges, and So Much More...


Lee J. Ames - 1980
    From the Eiffel Tower to the Taj Mahal -- 50 man-made and natural structures from around the world are drawn here.

The Complete Watercolorist's Essential Notebook: A Treasury of Watercolor Secrets Discovered Through Decades of Painting and Expe Rimentation


Gordon MacKenzie - 2010
    Clarifying and simplifying the various aspects of painting with watercolor, Gordon MacKenzie's The Complete Watercolorist's Essential Notebook will encourage and challenge you with new possibilities.Rather than a list of rules, this is a collection of principles, concepts and general information designed to expand your creative process. Mackenzie shares with you tips, techniques, ideas and lessons for a sure path to creative fulfillment and better watercolor paintings.

Sketching People: An Urban Sketcher's Manual to Drawing Figures and Faces


Lynne Chapman - 2016
    But it can also be a challenge. How do you spot a likely subject? How do you choose the person most likely to stay still? How do you draw movement for the person that refuses to sit still? "Sketching People" offers straightforward, practical help to give beginning artists the confidence and ability to draw all sorts of people in many different settings. In the pages of this book, readers will find: How to capture the essence of characterDifferent line-work stylesTechniques for creating realistic skin tonesThe key to capturing the details of street lifeWays to create fabric foldsMastering tonal drawingsConveying age differences, and moreThis clearly written, fun to read book is bursting with inspirational artwork and candid advice that will help you improve your drawing skills and change the way you sketch for the better.

The Silver Way: Techniques, Tips, and Tutorials for Effective Character Design


Stephen Silver - 2017
    Whether you're a professional artist interested in improving your drawing skills, or an aspiring designer fresh out of high school looking to add to your portfolio, The Silver Way will help you build your confidence and strengthen your work in order to successfully design characters for any project, in any style. Chockfull of helpful--and entertaining!--drawing techniques and easy-to-follow tutorials developed through his decades of experience as an artist on popular animated shows (Kim Possible, Danny Phantom, The Fairly OddParents) and as the owner of Silver Drawing Academy, The Silver Way is the kind of educational art book you'll revisit again and again for guidance, encouragement, and inspiration.

Drawing Realistic Textures in Pencil


J.D. Hillberry - 1999
    These methods are so easy that anyone--from doodler to advanced artist--can master them in minutes! Step by step, you'll learn how to capture the look of metal, glass, weathered wood, skin, hair and other textures. Two detailed start-to-finish demonstrations show you how to use these textures to create drawings that look so real they seem to leap right off the page.

Drawing Dynamic Hands


Burne Hogarth - 1977
    The most comprehensive book ever published on drawing hands, it uses a revolutionary system for visualizing the hand in an almost infinite number of positions.

Figure Drawing: Design and Invention


Michael Hampton - 2009
    This book emphasizes a simplified understanding of surface anatomy, in order to clarify the mechanics of the figure, facilitate invention, and ultimately create a skill-set that can be successfully applied to other media. In addition, this book focuses very strongly on practical usage, making sure the artist is able to assimilate the steps presented here into a cohesive working process. (Fourth printing, September 2011)

How to Draw What You See


Rudy De Reyna - 1972
    "I believe that you must be able to draw things as you see them--realistically," wrote Rudy de Reyna in his introduction.Today, generations of artists have learned to draw what they see, to truly capture the world around them, using de Reyna's methods. How to Draw What You See shows artists how to recognize the basic shape of an object--cube, cylinder, cone, or sphere--and use that shape to draw the object, no matter how much detail it contains.

The Practice and Science of Drawing


Harold Speed - 1900
    One of these principles is what Harold Speed calls "dither," the freedom that allows realism and the artistic vision to play against each other. Very important to any artist or work of art, this quality separates the scientifically accurate from the artistically accurate. Speed's approach to this problem is now considered a classic, one of the few books from the early years of this century that has continued to be read and recommended by those in the graphic arts.In this work, Harold Speed approaches this dynamic aspect of drawing and painting from many different points of view. He plays the historical against the scientific, theory against precise artistic definition. He begins with a study of line drawing and mass drawing, the two basic approaches the artist needs to learn. Further sections carry the artistic vision through unity and variety of line and mass, balance, proportion, portrait drawing, the visual memory, materials, and procedures. Throughout, Speed combines historical backgrounds, dynamic aspects which each technique brings to a work of art, and specific exercises through which the young draughtsman may begin his training. Although not a technique book in the strict sense of the terms, The Practice and Science of Drawing brings to the beginner a clear statement of the principles that he will have to develop and their importance in creating a work of art. Ninety-three plates and diagrams, masterfully selected, reinforce Speed's always clear presentation.Harold Speed, master of the art of drawing and brilliant teacher, has long been cited for this important work. For the beginner, Speed will develop a sense for the many different aspects which go into an artistic education. For the person who enjoys looking at drawings and paintings, Speed will aid developing the ability to see a work of art as the artist meant it to be seen.

Classic Human Anatomy: The Artist's Guide to Form, Function, and Movement


Valerie L. Winslow - 2008
    This long-awaited book provides simple, insightful approaches to the complex subject of human anatomy, using drawings, diagrams, and reader-friendly text. Three major sections–the skeletal form, the muscular form and action of the muscles, and movement–break the material down into easy-to-understand pieces. More than 800 distinctive illustrations detail the movement and actions of the bones and muscles, and unique charts reveal the origins and insertions of the muscles. Packed with an extraordinary wealth of information, Classic Human Anatomy is sure to become a new classic of art instruction.