A Guide to Drawing

The best-seller for the introduction to drawing course, "A Guide to Drawing" provides an excellent balance of classic, historical examples from around the world coupled with the most current images that reflect the state of the art of drawing. The text provides a systematic and sound course of instruction, beginning with an introduction to the nature of drawing and an invitation into the initial experiences of drawing, both underscored by an emphasis on the importance of learning how to see. The text moves through chapters on art elements, drawing media and subject matter, concluding with more advanced topics that can be used in subsequent courses, encouraging readers to keep this text as a reference throughout their studies and into their careers as artists. The eighth edition of "A Guide to Drawing" covers the most relevant drawing topics being taught today, with more emphasis on fundamentally expressive powers of drawing as a contemporary visual language, and more emphasis on coordinating sight and thought processes while drawing.

Table of Contents:
Part I: INTRODUCTION. 1. The Nature and Purpose of Drawing. Developing Our Sight Skills. The Legacy of Seeing. What Is Drawing? What Should It Do? First Glimpses--Types of Drawings. Informative Drawings of Specific Purpose. The Expressive Nature of Drawing. The Expressive Mysteries of Drawing. Part II: FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH DRAWING. 2. Initial Experiences: Looking, Seeing, and Drawing. Getting Started--Making the First Drawings. Looking at Other Drawings. Beginner's Media. Charcoal. Graphite Pencil. Ballpoint and Felt-Tip Pens. Brush and Ink Drawing. Ink Wash Techniques and Effects. 3. Learning to See Deeply. Coordinating Seeing and Thinking Skills. Atmospheric Seeing--Understanding Forms in Space. Perspective and Foreshortening. Mechanical Aids to Perception. Visualization with Vertical and Horizontal Alignments. Putting Visualization Skills into Practice. Proportional Relationships. Defining Forms with Negative Space. Modular Analysis--A Refined Approach. Seeing, Imagining--More than Physical Sight. The Inner Eye Overtaking Physical Sight. Part III: THE ART ELEMENTS. 4. Line: The Purest Power of Expression. Line Qualities. Gesture Line--Describing Motion. Contour and Blind Contour Line. Making Contour Drawings. Expressive Contour Line and Line Variation. Line--Lost and Found Edges. Searching and Cross-Contour Lines. The Tonal Line--Shading and Modeling. Hatching, Cross-Hatching, Scribbling, and Stippling. 5. Texture: Expression, Perception, Sensual Response. The Textures of Familiar Surfaces. Drawing Textures and Their Likenesses. Inherent Textures of Drawing Media. Textured Line and Stippling. Actual and Simulated Textures. Uniform Texture. Invented or Synthetic Textures. 6. Color: Value Delineation and Expressive Function. The Value Scale. Form Defined by Light and Shadow. Chiaroscuro--The Expressive Use of Value. Qualities of Light and Shadow. The Expressive Range of Value. High Key, Middle Key, Low Key. Full-Range Value Drawings. Value Contrasts for Emphasis. Color and Its Dimensions. Hue and the Value Scale. The Value Scale and Intensity. Color Schemes. Warm and Cool Colors. Mixing Colors. 7. Composition: The Art Elements. Form and Shape--Mass and Volume. Positive Shape and Negative Space. Size and Scale Relationships. Open and Closed Composition. Balance--Harmony--Rhythm. Dominance--Subordination. Eye Movement--Spatial Dynamics. Pattern--Repetition; Rhythm--Unity. 8. Linear Perspective: Drawing Forms in Space. Fixed Viewpoint and Cone of Vision. Picture Plane. Horizon Line and Ground Plane. Central Line of Vision--Central Vanishing Point. One-Point Perspective. Establishing a Grid. Two-Point Perspective. Inclined Planes. Uphill and Downhill Streets. Three-Point Perspective. Circles in Perspective--Ellipses. Ellipses in Varying Perspectives. Drawing Circular Objects. Part IV: THE MULTIPLICITIES OF DRAWING MEDIA. 9. Dry Media Expression. The Family of Dry Drawing Materials. Charcoal--Carbonized Wood. Types of Charcoal and Charcoal Techniques. Charcoal Papers of Varying Tooth and Weights. The Nature of Chalk. The Expressive Qualities of Pastels. Conte Crayon. Wax Crayons--Their Capabilities. Lithographic Crayon. Graphite--Pencil, Powdered, Stick Forms. Soft Graphite, Hard Graphite, and Graphite Powder. Drawing Methods for Color Pencils. Burnishing and Wax Bloom. Water Soluble Color Pencils. 10. Wet Media Expression. Pen and Ink. Types of Pens. Types of Paper for Wet Media. Value, Texture, Pattern with Wet Media. Stippling Effects of Wet Media. Brush and Ink. Drawing with Ink Wash. Modulating with Wash Drawing and Other Media. Monotype Methods and Drawing. Part V: SYNTHESIS IN TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY DRAWING. 11. The Still Life: Our Love of Objects. Advantages of Still Life Drawing. Still Life Forms and Value Studies. Reducing Objects to Schematic Forms. Still Life Composition and Treatments. The Unmannered Still Life--Avoiding Cliche. Pushing the Still Life Envelope. Transparent and Reflective Surfaces. Expanded Still Life Subjects. 12. Landscape Spaces, Skies, and Atmospheres. Landscapes--Varieties of Expression. The Deeper, Darker Moods of Landscape. Needs of the Landscape Artist. Selecting Landscape Imagery. Texture and Pattern in the Landscape. Spatial Relationships in Nature. Selecting Sky and Landscape Relationships. Rural Villages--Actual and Fantasized. Seascapes. 13. The Human Figure. Drawing the Human Anatomy. Design Elements within Human Anatomy. Preparing to Draw the Live Model. Gesture Drawing and the Human Figure. The Extended Pose. The Human Figure and the Picture Plane. Hands, Feet, Limbs, Foreshortening. Deeper Explorations of Gesture Drawing. Drawing Human Figures in Action. The Clothed Figure in Action and Repose. Bodily Structures Supporting Drapery. 14. Drawing the Human Portrait. The Human Head--Form and Proportion. The Facial Features. Drawing the Self-Portrait. The Objective Portrait. The Idealized Portrait. The Psychological Portrait. Capturing and Drawing a Caricature. 15. Expressive Drawing. Forms of Expression. Empathy in Drawing. Memory and Emotion in Drawing. Imagination and Expression. Metaphor, Imagination, and Expression. Responding Subjectively--Making Media Choices. Perspective Thrusts and Expression. Representation and Abstraction. Expressive Style--More than Talent and Technique.

About the Author :
David L. Faber is an American master printmaker and Professor of Art and Head of Printmaking at Wake Forest University where he has taught since 1984. He is the lead-author of A GUIDE TO DRAWING. Faber has had 22 solo exhibitions of his work since 1976 and has exhibited in numerous group and invitational exhibitions since 1974. He has lectured and worked as a guest artist in Canada, England, Germany, Italy, and South America. Some of his most notable works include: the Aberdeen Headlands series of chine colle monotypes; the Holstein Poetry-Catenary Curve series of intaglio prints; Saint Anna of Silos and Air; the Germans in Brazil series of lithographs produced in Sao Paulo, Brazil at Ymagos Atelier; the Red Holstein Factor series of plaster-cast intaglio prints; and the Piano Sheaves series of intaglio prints. Among Faber's most practiced printmaking techniques are intaglio, lithography, monotype, and plaster-cast intaglio prints. He specializes in drypoint, engraving, mezzotint, and etching techniques. His prints are held in the permanent collections of The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The National Art Museum of the Ukraine in Kiev, The U.S. State Department, Washington, DC, and The American Bar Association, Chicago.