Drawing For Dummies
by Brenda Hoddinott
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Book Reviews of Drawing For Dummies
Book Review: Could stand a lot of improvement
Summary: 3 Stars
I've used a number of For Dummies books and have been very impressed, but this one is a bit of a let-down. I'm returning to drawing after years away and was hoping this would provide a bit of a refresher course, but so far I've only found it moderately useful.The book has a number of strengths, including a positive attitude that's important for beginners to latch on to in order to avoid discouragement. The author is also great technician with the pencil, particularly where realistic portraits are concerned. Not everyone will warm to her fairly cold, analytical, draftsman-like style, though.
Despite those strengths, there are too many flaws in this book to make it a first recommendation:
* There's not enough info on materials and tools.
* The drawing reproductions are mostly way too small to learn from. They're fine for inspiration (or intimidation!) but won't much help you emulate the author's technique.
* The main focus is on the author's speciality of portraiture. You'll find some really interesting info there, but it would have been nice to see equal attention paid to landscapes, animals, still lifes, comic book and cartoon art, etc. As it is, they're totally ignored or covered so briefly as to be of little use.
* Instructions are vague. The author does some great texture and shading work with cross-hatching but never adequately describes _specifically_ how to do it for the different types of exercises and drawings. Why not tell us what pencil you're using when, why you choose certain stroke directions and lengths, etc.?
* The author totally ignores blending in favor of cross-hatching for shading. You can do great work with either technique, so why pretend one widely used method doesn't exist? Blending is particularly important for super-realistic renderings and portraits. Almost without exception, the very best pencil portraits I've seen have been created with blending.
Don't get me wrong: this isn't a bad book, just not all it could be. Hopefully a second edition will get it all right.
Book Review: mixed
Summary: 3 Stars
I like this book on some levels. On other levels...erm...there are problems. I agree that there are a lot of cartoony drawings, as well as some more realistic ones where she seemed to go through a looong period of giving people strange looking round clown type noses. The effect is off putting...not charming as I think was hoped.
She also uses what I think is a lot of inappropriate hatching..making her subjects sometimes seem kind of...hairy looking.
But these are all style issues...I really can't find fault with her technical ability. In fact, many drawings are beautiful.
As for blending, she feels it is more difficult to do well , and that's why she doesn't really approach it here. On her website she states more or less that to blend or not should be up to the individual artist and gives a reasonable tutorial on blending correctly.
Her examples are often not illustrated enough...and written instructions seem hurried, without details on how to do what she is talking about.
Also the pics in the examples are far too small...
But this is a good book as far as being approachable goes.
It gives good solid info, and does cover many subjects.
One book is rarely definitive in any endeavor one tries to learn...and often you can't cover everything in one book.
Publishers sometimes have to think about the larger market and what it will pay for.As far as we know she may have a limit on how many words and images she can use!
These books are designed to be inexpensive and general.
Given that fact, I think this particular "Dummie" book, does pretty well.
Book Review: An Art Course in one book
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the best book on drawing I have ever seen. I was searching for an art book to help with some aspects of drawing I was having trouble with. This book went far beyond that. It is like an art course in one book. There are many other good art books out there which do the same thing, but the book is laid out in the familiar Dummies style, which is easy to read, and great to use as a reference book. The book includes all facets of drawing: line drawing, light and shadows, patterns and textures, perspective, elements of composition, drawing still lifes, plants, animals, landscapes, people (including babies), cartooning, as well as information about setting up your own studio, developing your own drawing style, crossing over from drawing to painting, as well as other information helpful to artists. The author's style is very entertaining, and she encourages anyone to try drawing. There are tons of pictures throughout the whole book, as well as about thirty projects to try. Whether this is your first attempt at drawing, or an experienced artist, this book is an excellent choice for any artist.Book Review: Good Introduction to Drawing Technique
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a good all-around introduction to realistic drawing technique. The author demonstrates how to look at subjects with an eye for differences in value, which helps the student to shade a subject realistically. The book also covers techniques for producing a variety of textures, covering a full range of values, and judging subjects' proportions. The real strength of this book is the author's ability to explain her technique with astounding clarity. My only criticism is that she takes a purist approach to technique and advises students to avoid smudging implements like blending stumps and tortillions. I've found that judicious use of smudging not only makes for faster rendering, but also produces more realism in subjects with smooth-textured surfaces. For this reason, I've decided to award 4 stars. Otherwise I would have given 5 stars for clear and comprehensive instruction. I strongly recommend this book for beginners, but encourage you to keep an open mind and give smudging a try before you discard it outright.Book Review: Try another drawing book first!
Summary: 1 Stars
I have taught drawing on a college level for approximately 25 years and this book is about the least helpful one I have encountered. The reader is asked to devote time to "cute" cartooning and therefore spends less productive time on the more important aspects of learning to draw. I do not think cartooning itself is wasted time; some of the world's greatest draftsmen have been cartooners. Learning to look at something with full consciousness is the basic trick to drawing what one is seeing, and far too little time is devoted to avenues for achieving that result in this book. The illustrations are not the best, suggesting a less-than-stellar result for the reader. Even picking up a book of great drawings with no instruction included would be a better way to learn to draw, in my opinion. For solid instruction, however, look at books by Betty Edwards, Robert Beverly Hale, Kimon Nicolaides, Daniel M. Mendelowitz, or Nathan Goldstein.