This is a 176-page paperback and one of three books on figure drawing that I got for my birthday. I tell you, those other two are going to struggle to achieve the heights of this one.
This book is really good. It makes something that I thought was complicated simple and accessible. At the centre of things is a process of sorts and lots of examples of the process in practice. Every, model, pose and time limit is different and it really helps to see lots of examples on this book of the thoughts that should be going through an artist's head when faced with all these different challenges. Just giving us the process or the process with a single example wouldn't work - it needs al those examples.
There's also a lot of stuff in there on the landmarks to look for on the torso, neck and head and on the muscles and bones that will typically show up. But somehow Chris make this all simple and never boring. It doesn't read like a biology textbook.
I'll tell you something else that's good. The diagrams. There are countless examples in the book where Chris starts from a photo of a model and draws all sorts of gesture and rhythm lines over it or highlights particular bones and muscles. Often he'll use the same photo several times, highlighting different things on it.
Someone wanting to get into drawing should still start with Betty Edwards or Bert Dodson but this should be the next book on their reading if they want to get into figure drawing. I may come back to this review and have more to say after reading those other two figure drawing books but, for now, this gets a comfortable four palettes.
🎨🎨🎨🎨
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