About the Book
If you have always wanted to learn to draw but lack the confidence to start, Drawing for the Absolute Beginner is the book for you.
The author, Carole Massey, is an accomplished artist with many years' experience of teaching and demonstrating, and even the most hesitant of beginners will soon pick up the skills and techniques needed to start drawing. The book is a complete drawing course, designed to help you progress from simple techniques such as lines, circles, squares and ellipses through to capturing landscapes, figures and buildings.
There are numerous simple step-by-step demonstrations as well as larger projects, and outline tracings are provided of the more complex drawings that you can transfer straight onto your paper, if you wish to use them. Most of the artworks in the book are created using pencil, but the author also uses ink, ballpoint pen, pastel pencil and watersoluble pencils to encourage you to experiment with other media too. By the end of the book, you will have learnt all you need to know to take your drawing skills further and become an accomplished artist in your own right.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
First steps
Tone
Shading
Ways of seeing
Sketching
Landscapes
Composition
Figures, animals and movement
Buildings and perspective
Using the outlines
Index
About the Author :
Carole Massey was born in Hertfordshire and studied at St. Alban's School of Art and Leicester School of Art & Design. After a career in advertising and graphic design, Carole returned to her first love, art, full-time. She now teaches and runs weekend workshops, as well as organising painting and drawing holidays. Carole's work is exhibited widely, and she is particularly known for her celebrity portraits, mostly inspired by photographs. She uses a wide variety of media including acrylic, watercolour, pastel, pencil and monochrome.
Review :
Carole explains and demonstrates composition, perspective, positioning, and negative shapes as well as the many techniques of mark making.
The heart of the book is a series of 16 pre-printed outlines that contain only the basic shapes, leaving you to work on the details - shading, hatching, backgrounds and colour.
This is quite the best introduction to drawing I’ve seen. Carole has a simple, unfussy style and she’s also very good at simplification – reducing subjects to their essence, avoiding unnecessary detail, working loosely and explaining simple shapes and their relationships.
There’s plenty to get your teeth into, from basic techniques to outlines, hatching, shading and the use of colour. Subjects range from landscapes, trees and water to figures and animals (both static and moving) and buildings.
Like the rest of the series, this is well thought-through and will take you from first steps and on to some really quite advanced work
Jan/Feb 2018
This book is an absolute delight, covering so many aspects of drawing that anyone looking to start drawing and even experienced artists will find inspiration here. We love the very helpful step-by-step approach, the contents include: introduction, first steps, tone, shading, ways of seeing, sketching, landscapes, composition, figures, animals and movement, buildings and perspective. Outline tracings are provided of the more complex drawings that you can transfer straight onto your paper, if you wish to use them. As the days start getting long this inspiring bok is all the encouragement you need to start creating your own pieces of art! Highly recommended!
Part of Search Press' series of books for beginners, Drawing for the Absolute Beginner by Carole Massey is aimed at anyone who lacks the confidence to get started. Eminently practical, with plenty of step-by-step demonstrations and projects, Carole takes you by the hand and shows you the way forward. The book is designed to progress the student from very simple drawing exercises, such as drawing circles and ellipses, through to more complex subjects until you will find yourself tackling landscapes, figures and buildings. Outline tracings are provided of the more complex drawings so that you don't become overwhelmed with the details and can enjoy the experience.
Anybody can learn to draw; it is all a matter of looking at the world in the right way and putting it down on paper. This book contains a basic course on how to do this from scratch through a series of step-by-step lessons.
It could be argued that the only real “absolute beginner” when it comes to drawing is a very young child; this book is aimed at the adult who says that they cannot draw. The course starts with making simple marks and drawing basic shapes, breaking objects down into shapes and progressing to tone, shading and shadow. Pencils, pens, charcoal and various types of colored pencils are the media used and most aspects of drawing are covered including composition, perspective, textures, scale etc. A wide variety of different subjects are covered too from still life through to landscapes, figures, animals, buildings and more. The idea is that you progress through various short tasks and some longer projects to build up skills. These are in classic Search Press staged captioned photographs showing how the drawing builds up. The book also contains many examples of the artist’s work with captions explaining how a certain effect has been achieved as well as a useful index. Anybody who wants to draw can learn a lot from this primer.
Drawing is something I have always previously been scared of. I can't picture things in my head so I think this hinders me slightly. However I have decided to combat my fear and to start learning. It's amazing coming back to drawing as an adult. I thought this book would be a fantastic place to start. It takes you through each step so that you can see how to easily break things down and replicate it. Carole takes you through such small and easy steps that you don't realise how quickly you are changing the way you draw and making it so much easier. Throughout the book there are clear instructions and clear pictures to help you achieve everything. I am finding that the more I practice each step the easier I find the next step in the process. Carole breaks everything down into small steps so that you can easily progress. It takes each part of drawing and breaks it down so that it is easy to understand. The book is designed for using pencils but I used the same principles to draw on my tablet and it worked really well. You start the book off with the basics. With everything from choosing your pencils, sharpening your pencil to how best to hold your pencil. You are taken through step by step on how to draw different types of lines, shapes etc.
Then it's onto how to shade etc. You will not believe how quickly you are drawing different items. I did struggle at times to exactly replicate some of the pictures. However I do feel that as I progress through the book this will become easier.
If you are wanting to learn all the different basics of drawing then this book is really worth it.
