Customer Reviews

The Art of Drawing

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book, by deceased illustrator Willy Pogany, is, along with Jack Hamm's book, the best one on drawing the human head and figure. The book covers perspective, shape, and figure drawing in step-by-step practical fashion. Also included is an inspiring section of Pogany's own sketches of fanciful worlds and creatures. This book makes you want to practice and practice the steps, so that you too can create your own lively characters and scenes.

Willy Pogany is one of the great classic masters of illustration; yet he does not hesitate to patiently take the student from the very beginning steps of drawing to the most advanced figure exercises. With very few words, and many excellent pictures, Pogany reveals the secrets of art and drawing. And even if you never follow the lessons, the pictures alone are worth the price!

...yet it took a long time for this to really grow on me. It looked a little *too* basic at first!

Reasons to buy this book: 1. Beautiful, *clear & simple* figure linework & shading; and 2. It's 120+ pages, filled with 100% pure pencil drawings for beginners.

Why do I like it? It's all about the clear & simple figure linework & shading. Including a brief introduction to perspective, the basics of figure drawing here are *really* rock-solid. His excellent drawings of women & children really stand out, and are the highlight of the book for me. The earliest copyright in my copy is 1972, but it was originally published way before that, as Willy Pogany actually lived between 1882-1955. A book doesn't last this long without reason(!). When you have linework & shading as clean & accurate as often seen here, the technique can be applied to any drawing style at any time. It's certainly helpful for life drawing in general, and that's something that never gets outdated (at least not quickly!).

Similar great books for beginners: George Bridgman's Heads, Features and Faces & Constructive Anatomy; Jack Hamm's Drawing the Head and Figure; Andrew Loomis' Drawing: The Head (HT197); and Barbara Bradley's Drawing People: How to Portray the Clothed Figure. All, at the time of this review, available here on Amazon! And for intermediate artists: see Loomis' Figure Drawing For All It's Worth.

P.S. There are 2 versions of this book right now: The Art of Drawing by Madison Books, and then Drawing Lessons reprinted by Dover. They have the *exact* same content, except that Dover for some reason has considerably worse printing quality in Drawing Lessons. Get the Art of Drawing instead!

Really good, but with some "mature audience" themes, thus, not for minor children etc. Otherwise, I very much recommend it.

Conflicts abound in how drawing is to be taught, and the current popular books reflect this ongoing conflict. For example, many popular books disregard the classical method. They are full of master sketches, and unfortunately, putting those pictures in the books doesn't show us specifically how to draw them, because they employ "Invisible Problem Solving" teaching methods, skipping the use of "simplified figurettes" or "human puppets".

Pogarny breaks it down to geometric basics, and he does genuinely use the CLASSICAL METHOD, unlike the many books which make such a claim but lie outright about it. His demonstration of PERSPECTIVE is not to be found in any other book.

I rate this book very highly as a beginner instruction. Pogany's illustrations are lively, highly animated and expressive. It's a book whose pages will be thumbed again and again.

This book appears deceptively simple because of the compact style of instruction, but study of the absolutely beautiful linework will tell you more about drawing then any other book.

Willy Pogany's book is a hodge-podge of drawing topics that focus primarily on figure-drawing and perspective. Compared to some art books that I presently own, the illustrations in this one seem to be the main form of instruction which is a good thing for a visual learner like me.

His drawings are very inspiring, however the book just doesn't go into as much detail as more specific manuals (except for the figure-drawing segment, which is good). This, in itself, would make it highly recommended to those starting out in the arena of art/sketching.

A wonderful book by an oustanding artist. It might be not so complete and consequent than some later "how-to-draw-this-how-to-draw-that" books (Jack Hamm's, Gottfried Barmes', among the best ones), it is not full of tricks and deceiving oversimplifications, but it has... Spirit! Grace! Inspiration! The thing is: you'll learn to draw by drawing. And drawing a lot. And then drawing some more. On the way, it is nice to meet some old master who can point right or wrong and give some encouragement. Well, these great old artists are rare. This book is your next best alternative. What are publishers and distributors (like Amazon) waiting for to reissue Willy Pogany's other works? We need mor of this type of art!!!

I was given a copy of this book when I was a teenager and am happy to have found it again by chance from reading a review of another drawing book, based upon my copying the drawings in this book at that time which I still have.

The reviews of this and some other drawing books many times do not acknowledge the fact that drawing serves vast and varying purposes. When it comes to the rendering the figure at least 2 conceptualizations for rendering should be considered before criticizing the manner of information in a book on the subject.

1. Abstract concepts of rendering the figure can be kept in mind while working from the model and serve mostly to allow one to construct the figure accurately and believably with no outside reference--only using well established skills and rules to create credible expression of the human form.

2. Drawing from life can be strictly copying what you see - as challenging as the required skills are to acquire.

Ultimately the serious artist who may want to render a likeness of a living person needs abstract or conceptual references while drawing from the model to provide more information than is seen to express more fully what is there or, conversely what is not tangible. This is the difference between "taking a photograph" and the purpose of all the hours and persistence in development of the talent to draw skillfully and beyond.

Finally, reading a drawing book must be considered no different than reading the rules of driving a vehicle--without application of the information and experience using it, you might as well be watching TV for all you genuinely know of the subject, no matter what you believe.

This book is one to work from, especially if you are not able to attend an art school to study full time, as part of a study course you develop to learn various figure drawing skills. Also, for example, Betty Edwards' exercises are good and separate from the skills mentioned in this book. No one book, teacher or method will provide all the information you may need to draw the way you can best express your unique talent. These two authors' exercises contribute substantially to a small and excellent drawing library to get solid drawing skills so you can find and express exactly what you want with your talents.

I just finished reading this book and I really enjoyed it. It offers great step-by-step instructions on how to draw almost anything. the illustrations are great. It is a must have book.

This is an excellent instruction book with beautiful drawings.
Don't make my mistake, this is exactly the same book as "Drawing Lessons" by the same author.