Learn to Draw - Books
Friday October 6, 2006
The internet is a fantastic resource for all sorts of art information, but sometimes you want to get away from your computer and leaf through a text, flick back and forward between pages without waiting for images to load.... you need a book. I'm a big fan of the printed page - our home has many overloaded bookshelves - but art books can be expensive. So how do you choose just one?
Research online first - make a short list of books that sound good and review well - but try to look at them for yourself at a bookstore. Do you like the style of work that the author does? Check out the early exercises - do they look like something you can achieve easily? That's good. Then look to see if the book progresses through more complex examples. Does it cover everything you need to know - line, perspective, porportion, negative space, volume, shading? Also make sure it suits your style of learning - detailed explanatory text if you like to read, hands-on exercises if you prefer to get stuck into things straight away.
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Comments
Helen, a very good source of art books is your public library. You can usually encourage the local branch to get new art texts as they come out. Here in the Hudson Valley of New York we have a large area that has many libraries that all work together and allow you to order from another library and have it delivered to your library.
Hi Stuart! Yes… of course! I guess I wondered if there aren’t as many public libraries in the USA, since people seem to rarely mention them. Our local library is excellent, and like your NY system, while it is a relatively small country town, I can also borrow books from the local area by searching on their computer, which gives me a pretty good range. For a fee, I can even access inter-library loans for hard-to-get titles.