Books Reviews

Draw Portraits – Book Review

By Angela Youngman Dec 12, 2011, 15:29 GMT

Ideal for aspiring artists eager to learn but unable to take advantage of workshops or formal instruction, these practical handbooks offer a structured, hands-on approach to creating realistic and appealing drawings. Emphasizing the importance of observation, the series\' fun exercises present various challenges of increasing complexity. The tutorials also feature line work, sketches, and finished images drawn with an array of materials—from chalk, charcoal, graphite, and pastels to standard, colored, and watercolor pencils. Specially designed to build essential skills, this ...more

Portraying the human face is difficult for any artist.  Trying to get a lifelike impression, and to capture expressions is not easy. Renate Klein has set out to help artists of any standard improve their portrait technique. 

She looks at the use of light and shade, the anatomy of the head and face including very useful step by step exercises on drawing awkward features like hair, eyes, ears and mouth.  Sample practice projects showing how to draw people in different life stages are a very valuable asset. 

Help is also given on using the right medium in the right place and what combination of drawing materials works best when drawing different facial features.  The instructions are clearly given, and even total beginners will find it easy to follow the step by step basis.