This book will prove you can
When it arrived, I wondered if this book had come to the wrong reviewer as I can draw, however if I couldn’t, this would be the book to encourage and to enable me.
When I was at art school, drawing was out of fashion and it remained so for a long time. However I was lucky as I did my degree at Camberwell School of Art, when it was believed that drawing was the foundation of all artistic endeavour and so we were taught to draw, how to scale up, how to draw perspective shade etc.
What Lydia has managed to do in her book is to encompass lots of techniques in a fun and modern way. It is not so much a ‘How To’ tome, but a workbook, that you fill in and have fun with, as you learn to draw.
In the opening page of the book the author says
“ Think you can’t draw? Think again.
Every page has been designed to put you in touch with your creative side and get you drawing.
No experience necessary- just grab a pen, or whatever else is handy and see where it takes you.
Each new project will ease you into learning a new skill, sometimes without you realizing what you are doing. “
Some of the topics covered include making marks, creating textures, drawing water, movement, far and near. Adding shadows, drawing in reverse and drawing negative spaces.
There are some wonderful experimental tasks such as drawing with your non-dominant hand and drawing by feel. For this task you get someone else to place an object in a bag and you feel, but cannot see it, and you draw what you have felt. Another interesting experiment is to draw a complicated shape using a continuous line and without lifting your pen or paper off the page. I highly recommend this book and I have already started using it, as even old dogs can attempt to learn new tricks.
by Lydia Crook published by Ivy Press
creativecolour.org 