Life Drawing in Charcoal (Dover Art Instruction)

I recently reviewed a book on life drawing where the author used a painstaking process to make gorgeous pencil drawings. He focussed on building up tone through meticulous hatching and shading. (And outlining and measuring - very obsessive but rewarding.)This book also focuses on tone rather than line, this time in charcoal and without the rather anal measuring and outlining.In fact it is far more accessible to the average life student, because the methods Graves uses can likewise be used in a life class. You don't need days and days of posing. Nor do you need the foundation drawing skills required by the other book. This is a book which can be put to immediate use.And very valuable it is, too. Expect an improvement in your results the first time you put the lessons taught by Graves to use. You will find yourself looking at your model as a collection of tonal areas, rather than lines, and consequently your drawings will have more shape to them. They will be brought to life.The essence of Graves' method is to work with two tools - charcoal and a chamois. Tones are built up with the charcoal, and the chamois is used to lighten them. One early exercise uses a "wash" of charcoal to create a background and then shapes are picked out with the chamois to make the drawing. Darker values such as shadows are added with more charcoal.The book starts with the basics. Tools, media and techniques. All illustrated and described, along with exercises illustrated for the student.Chapters are presented as exercises, each focused on a different topic. Lines and shadows, proportions, alignments, composition and so on, each building on the last. Step by step the final image is built up from broad tonal masses to detailed shapes. Construction lines are shown and at each step Graves tells us precisely what he is doing and why.I particularly liked the illustrated explanation of the difference between lines and outlines. The body has lines, such as the creases formed when folding the elbow, and outlines, being the imaginary line where the body finishes and the background begins. Drawing body lines reflects reality, but drawing outlines imposes something that isn't there - we don't see bodies surrounded by lines - if the background and the body are the same colour they blend into each other, they don't form a line. Graves uses negative shapes to help define the outline, a much more natural and satisfactory method.Graves shows and tells in a pleasant, consistent manner how to improve our techniques. There is something here for all levels, but this book is perhaps best used by an intermediate artist rather than a beginner or an expert. A few basic skills help to get right into it, and if you are already achieving good results you may not feel happy about changing your ways.Having said that, Graves provides plenty of flexibility and new ideas to add to an existing skill base. This book *will* help you improve your style.Highly recommended to anybody with an interest in drawing the nude. Especially valuable to students attending life class for the first time.

enjoyed being able to understand and apply techniques immediately. look forward to drawing with charcoal every day.

There are plenty of things about this book that are helpful and insightful. The Kindle edition, unfortunately, was clearly rushed to market and is full of careless oversights. The index, for example, has no links. This wouldn’t be so bad if it had contained page numbers — which it doesn’t. Therefore it serves just list the things that are dealt with somewhere in the book. Godspeed finding them.Within the text there are plenty of active links. Most of them, however, lead to completely erroneous ends leaving the interested reader the task of trying to scratch out where that link might have intended to lead.This whole review has been about why I removed a star for the ebook.The book itself is a worthwhile companion to texts on figure drawing.

The book has helped me, - a "beginning artist" -- to relax and start to see the subjects and my renditions in a more relaxed and "sketchy" way, especially when I begin a drawing. By starting with tone and making a sort of "charcoal wash", then taking away the negative space as the subject takes shape has been fun for me. As I progress toward rendering a more classic version of a subject, I find that "moving the charcoal on the page" is easier. The book has been eye-opening for me to ease up and stop over-rendering!

The book itself is very basic in terms of teaching, that being said the author gives a wide array of projects which mainly consists of the human anatomy. I was expecting more techniques on how to actually use charcoal, but alas this book just doesn't cut it for me. Its not bad, simply basic.

This book has really awesome reference drawings, not only are the tutorials helpful but the book may as well be a coffee table art book, the images are so beautiful.The content spans from basic introductory tips to more advanced information, that make this a required "core" staple of your art library.The way the book is bound makes it easy to stay open to a specific page, which comes in handy while you're hands are full of charcoal. It's large but it's not prohibitively heavy to carry with you.

This book helped me gain confidence in drawing as it gave me more freedom to correct and experiment. The chapters are set up in logical sequence and led me to build my confidence. At my last portrait class I left my pastels home and used just charcoal and am now doing some plein air with charcoal only. This book gave me this impetus try this.

Graves goes on about scaring the student with such phrases as "plunging immediatley into frantic production of your own thing." The entire book is a number tricks. I don't object to "tricks" if the ends result in a good drawing. The first rule of art is ; there no rules. I agree with many of Graves' didactic, time tested academic step by step progress. However what I see here is not unlike many of the popular TV how to draw/paint....Like ME. In fact Graves' drawings are rather poor. His concepts about tone and form are sound. My fear is that is that want of the student to advance in there truest of artforms; the charcoal drawing. It is the purest of all medium. The art of drawing is the most important vehicle to which the artist can move on to painting, printmaking etc.; not that that is even important. A good drawing can stand alone and equal to any painting. If you really wish to draw well I would suggest "The Natural way to Draw" which is also very exercize driven and only people who truly want to draw well will follow this regimine. Nicholides does not present his own work as an example of how to draw; but rather chooses to present and challenge the student to work and work hard. I believe this a better way in which to convey the principles of draughtsmanship.

Adorei

Sold as new but book turned up in used condition

Si eres autodidacta ese libro es perfecto. Te da unas buenas bases y esta todo muy bien explicado. Perfecto para iniciarte en el mundo realista a carboncillO!

Pleased with purchase and service given for which many thanks.

木炭画用の教材書です。石膏像ではなく、人体を描くことについての本であることに、新鮮。ざっと見るだけで、十分。