The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
by Betty Edwards
from Tarcher
illustrated with 12-page color photo insert and line art throughout
A revised and expanded edition of the classic drawing-instruction book that has sold more than 2,500,000 copies.
When Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain was first published in 1979, it hit the New York Times bestseller list within two weeks and stayed there for more than a year. In 1989, when Dr. Betty Edwards revised the book, it went straight to the Times list again. Now Dr. Edwards celebrates the twentieth anniversary of her classic book with a second revised edition.
Over the last decade, Dr. Edwards has refined her material through teaching hundreds of workshops and seminars. Truly The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, this edition includes:
* the very latest developments in brain research;
* new material on using drawing techniques in the corporate world and in education;
* instruction on self-expression through drawing;
* an updated section on using color; and
* detailed information on using the five basic skills of drawing for problem solving.
Translated into thirteen languages, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is the world's most widely used drawing-instruction guide. People from just about every walk of life--artists, students, corporate executives, architects, real estate agents, designers, engineers--have applied its revolutionary approach to problem solving. The Los Angeles Times said it best: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is "not only a book about drawing, it is a book about living. This brilliant approach to the teaching of drawing . . . should not be dismissed as a mere text. It emancipates."
New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook: Guided Practice in the Five Basic Skills of Drawing
by Betty Edwards
from Tarcher
Millions of people have learned to draw using the methods of Dr. Betty Edwards. Now, in an essential companion to her bestselling classic, Edwards offers readers the key to mastering this art form: guided practice in their newfound creative abilities.
Here are forty new exercises that cover each of the five basic skills of drawing. Each practice session includes a brief explanation and instructional drawings, suggestions for materials, sample drawings, and blank pages for the reader's own drawings. Also provided in this spiral-bound workbook is a pullout viewfinder, a crucial tool for effective practice. While The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain focused primarily on portrait drawing with pencil, this workbook gives readers experience in various subject matter-still life, landscape, imaginative drawing-using alternative mediums such as pen and ink, charcoal, and conté crayon.
For all those who are taking a drawing class, who have already received instruction through a book or course, or who prefer to learn by doing, this volume of carefully structured "homework" offers the perfect opportunity to reinforce and improve their skills and expand their repertoire.
Acrylic Revolution: New Tricks and Techniques for Working with the World's Most Versatile Medium
by Nancy Reyner
from North Light Books
Liberate Your Creativity With Acrylic Paints!
Acrylic Revolution is your essential, all-in-one guide for acrylic painting techniques and more. It features over 101 ways to break through the boundaries of conventional painting and re-define the creative potential of this all-purpose medium.
Every page provides insight on how to use acrylic paint in ways you never thought possible to create stunning visual effects and textures. Ten complete sections detail a range of empowering applications, including how to:
- Prepare and paint on virtually any surface
- Create textures of all kinds
- Work with transfers, collage, resists and mixed media
- Achieve innovative stenciling and line work
- Customize your paint to adjust thickness, transparency and drying time
- Simulate other mediums, such as oil, tempera or watercolor
- Create faux finishes, magical effects, sheens and more
Pick up a brush and start your own acrylic revolution today!
Use the techniques in this book to free your creative spirit and create the paintings you've always dreamed of.
How to Draw What You See (Practical Art Books)
by Rudy De Reyna
from Watson-Guptill
•A best-seller for 35 years
• A timeless classic that has taught generations of artists—and will teach generations more
When it was originally published in 1970, How to Draw What You See zoomed to the top of the publisher's best-seller list—and it has remained there ever since. "I believe that you must be able to draw things as you see them—realistically," wrote Rudy de Reyna in this 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 to draw the object, no matter how much detail it contains.
Mixed Martial Arts: The Book of Knowledge
by BJ Penn
from Victory Belt Publishing
Mixed Martial Arts outlines the revolutionary system of fighting used by world-renowned fighter BJ Penn, Coach of Spike TV's 'Ultimate Fighter 5'.
Penn, one of the most technical and decorated fighters in the world today, illustrates fighting techniques that teach you how to mix strikes with takedowns, ground and pound an opponent into submission, fight against the cage and formulate strategies based upon your personal attributes and strengths.
Drawing Words and Writing Pictures: Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond
by Jessica Abel
from First Second
Learn to create your own comics with Drawing Words and Writing Pictures, a richly illustrated collection of 15 in-depth lessons that cover everything from crafting your story to lettering and laying out panels.
Take a Look Inside Drawing Words and Writing Pictures
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Three Panels That Move Beyond the Grid
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| This page from Mike Mignola's Hellboy is a beautiful example of creating rhythm and mood. Read more... | In Blankets, Craig Thompson tells his story through dramatic and unexpected page layouts. Read more... | In David B.'s Epileptic, the shape and orientation of the panel reinforce the storytelling. Read more... |
"A gold mine of essential information for every aspiring comics artist. Highly recommended." --Scott McCloud
Drawing Words and Writing Pictures is a course on comic creation – for college classes or for independent study – that centers on storytelling and concludes with making a finished comic. With chapters on lettering, story structure, and panel layout, the fifteen lessons offered – each complete with homework, extra credit activities and supplementary reading suggestions – provide a solid introduction for people interested in making their own comics. Additional resources, lessons, and after-class help are available on the accompanying website, www.dw-wp.com.
Facial Expressions: A Visual Reference for Artists
by Mark Simon
from Watson-Guptill
All artists are tired of persuading their nearest and dearest to look sad…look glad…look mad…madder…no, even madder…okay, hold it. For those artists (and their long-suffering friends), here is the best book ever. Facial Expressions includes more than 2,500 photographs of 50 faces—men and women of a variety of ages, shapes, sizes, and ethnicities—each demonstrating a wide range of emotions and shown from multiple angles. Who can use this book? Oh, only every artist on the planet, including art students, illustrators, fine artists, animators, storyboarders, and comic book artists. But wait, there's more! Additional photos focus on people wearing hats and couples kissing, while illustrations show skull anatomy and facial musculature. Still not enough? How about a one-of-a-kind series of photos of lips pronouncing the phonemes used in human speech? Animators will swoon—and artists will show a range of facial expressions from happy to happiest to ecstatic.
The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study
by Kimon Nicolaides
from Houghton Mifflin
Great for the beginner and the expert, this book offers readers exercises to improve their work.
Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, Second Edition
by Mike Mattesi
from Focal Press
Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators
Capture the force in your life drawing subjects with this practical guide to dynamic drawing techniques - packed with superb, powerfully drawn examples that show you how to:
* Bring your work to life with rhythmic drawing techniques
* Create appealing and dynamic poses in your drawings
* Experience the figure's energy in three dimensional space
* Use the asymmetry of straight and curved lines to clarify the direction of force in the body
* Build on your foundational anatomy and figure drawing skills to animate your drawings
*Apply the theory of force to your on-location and animal drawing observations
Whether you are an animator, comic book artist, illustrator or fine arts' student you'll learn to use rhythm, shape, and line to bring out the life in any subject while Mike Mattesis infectious enthusiasm will have you reaching for your pencils!
Mike Mattesi is the owner and founder of Entertainment Art Academy (www.enterartacad.com) based in Southern California. He has been a professional production artist and instructor for the last fifteen years with clients including Disney, Marvel Comics, Hasbro Toys, ABC, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, DreamWorks and Nickelodeon.
Audience level: Intermediate to advanced
* Discover and master the techniques of rhythmic drawing and bring your work to life
* Learn from a professional production artist who has successfully taught his unique techniques for the last fifteen years
* Written in an accessible, enthusiastic style which will have you reaching for your pencils!
Prepare to experience a brand new thought process on the drawing of life and the expression of energy. This important concept is also the least talked about subject in figure drawing classes today. Artist Michael Mattesi is your guide on an exciting and provocative journey through multiple methods of thinking using easy to understand critiques of dynamic drawings. Learn to approach drawing through Michael
Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels
by Scott McCloud
from Harper Paperbacks
Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics was published in 1993, just as "Comics Aren't Just for Kids Anymore!" articles were starting to appear and graphic novels were making their way into the mainstream, and it quickly gave the newly respectable medium the theoretical and practical manifesto it needed. With his clear-eyed and approachable analysis--done using the same comics tools he was describing--McCloud quickly gave "sequential art" a language to understand itself. McCloud made the simplest of drawing decisions seem deep with artistic potential.
Thirteen years later, following the Internet evangelizing of Reinventing Comics, McCloud has returned with Making Comics.
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Designed as a craftsperson's overview of the drawing and storytelling decisions and possibilities available to comics artists, covering everything from facial expressions and page layout to the choice of tools and story construction, Making Comics, like its predecessors, is also an eye-opening trip behind the scenes of art-making, fascinating for anyone reading comics as well as those making them. Get a sense of the range of his lessons by clicking through to the opening pages of his book, including his (illustrated, of course) table of contents (warning: large file, recommended for high-bandwidth users):
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Scott McCloud tore down the wall between high and low culture in 1993 with Understanding Comics, a massive comic book about comics, linking the medium to such diverse fields as media theory, movie criticism, and web design. In Reinventing Comics, McCloud took this to the next level, charting twelve different revolutions in how comics are generated, read, and perceived today. Now, in Making Comics, McCloud focuses his analysis on the art form itself, exploring the creation of comics, from the broadest principles to the sharpest details (like how to accentuate a character's facial muscles in order to form the emotion of disgust rather than the emotion of surprise.) And he does all of it in his inimitable voice and through his cartoon stand–in narrator, mixing dry humor and legitimate instruction. McCloud shows his reader how to master the human condition through word and image in a brilliantly minimalistic way. Comic book devotees as well as the most uninitiated will marvel at this journey into a once–underappreciated art form.
