Jim Dowdalls

What a wonderful book this is! As a self-learner and someone who is passionate about arts and crafts, I found this book to be a fantastic resource for learning and practicing the foundation skills needed for drawing.

It is presented as if you were taking a traditional drawing class, starting from how to hold your pencil and the purpose of different tools for drawing, different working surfaces, light conditions when drawing, etc. It has a visual and practical approach with a lot of images to guide you through the lessons, homework and exercises so that you can practice right away. Some of the subjects covered are: proportion, perspective, composition, grid drawing, value and coloring. My favorite part of the book was the explanation about "eye level" or "horizon line". Although this is a very common term mentioned in most beginner's books, the explanation and example images helped me have a better understanding of it. Like this, I have many other examples where I found myself getting a better grasp of subjects I thought I already knew.

As many artists would say "If you don't properly know your basics, no amount of rendering will be able to fix it". So, whether you are a digital or traditional artist, this book contains invaluable lessons to help you level up your art. *I read this book as an eARC, but my bday is coming and I need this book in my life, so I will be buying it too*… (plus d'informations)