Complete Idiot's Guide to Drawing [Paperback]

Lauren Jarrett (Author), Lisa Lenard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2000 | Series: The Complete Idiot's Guide

You will learn to unlock the artist within you so you too can draw and express yourself!! This book will show you how to use different basic mediums, such as pencils, charcoal, pen and ink. It will also teach you different types of drawing such as line, cartoon, figure, perspective and technical drawing. The book will include using shading, light, dimension, energy and mood techniques. Blank pages are included to serve as practice pages.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

You will learn to unlock the artist within you so you too can draw and express yourself!! This book will show you how to use different basic mediums, such as pencils, charcoal, pen and ink. It will also teach you different types of drawing such as line, cartoon, figure, perspective and technical drawing. The book will include using shading, light, dimension, energy and mood techniques. Blank pages are included to serve as practice pages.

About the Author

Lauren Jarrett, a naturalist, has collected, drawn, and painted from nature since childhood. She currently teaches in East Hampton, New York.

Lisa Lenard is the coauthor of several titles in The Complete Idiot's Guide® series, and has taught composition and literature at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Alpha; 1 edition (July 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028639367
• ISBN-13: 978-0028639369
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #567,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good resource, but not the best starting point, February 1, 2004

By 

Thomas Hochmann (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Drawing, 2E (Mass Market Paperback)

I bought /The Complete Idiot's Guide to Drawing/ on a whim, because it had lots of illustrations and a wide variety of topics contained within. I'm not at all disappointed with the book, but I feel I should warn potential buyers that this is not necessarily the best book to start with.

The authors start out with basic drawing theory, left brain vs. right brain, etc. and a few exercises to help you understand how best to approach drawing in general. They move on to talk about different types of paper, pencils, the picture plane, viewfinder, and other tools for drawing - very useful and well thought out information. Then the book jumps into various ideas for what to draw, what perspectives to try, etc.

If you're thinking it sounds like something has been left out, you're right. While /Idiot's Guide to Drawing/ covers a lot of tools and drawing ideas, it doesn't offer much in the way of exercises or practical advice for actually _drawing_. So while you may be inspired by, say, the section on still life drawings, you will find very little in the way to help you practice.

So what it comes down to is this: if you've dabbled a bit in drawing and aren't afraid of experimentation, this is an excellent book. Lots of good stuff in here, and great ideas for where you might want to point your creativity. But as I said, there aren't very many guided exercises in the book to help you explore the concepts you see and get any decent amount of feedback. Some would argue that lots of little exercises are silly or pointless, but I think they can be great confidence builders for those of us who tend to be overly critical of our own artwork... Or those of us who expect far too much from ourselves early on.

I highly recommend this book - but with a strong suggestion that you start with one or two more basic drawing books (like /Drawing for Dummies/), unless you want to do a great deal of experimentation on your own.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for adult beginners, July 13, 2001

By 

Jerry Smith (Glendale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Idiot's Guide to Drawing (Paperback)

Most drawing books either get too advanced early or are written for young kids. This one contains useful exercises in every chapter at a pace that isn't boring but can be followed. This is the fourth drawing book I've started and the only one I've stuck with. By chapter 8 (or 12 at the latest) your drawings will no longer belong on the refrigerator door. Good luck to all the other adult beginners out there!!

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I went from stick people to..., October 3, 2000

By 

"selket" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Idiot's Guide to Drawing (Paperback)

Well...stick people with depth! But seriously, I always though I had a drawing impairment gene but even after spending a few minutes with this book and the excellent ideas and advice on how to "see" objects I could actually sit down and do a drawing of my hand that looked dimensional. I am really amazed by the results so far and can certainly recommend it to those who want to have some fun and try a little drawing beyond stick people.