Drawing Animals [Hardcover]

Victor G. Ambrus (Author), Mark Ambrus (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: North Light Books; illustrated edition edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891349294
• ISBN-13: 978-0891349297
• Product Dimensions: 13.6 x 10.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,513,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great drawings, but doesn't really teach how to do them, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Drawing Animals (Hardcover)

If you are a beginner that wants to learn how to draw animals, do not buy this book. If you want to look at pages and pages of beautifully rendered animal drawings, then this will be well worth your money. On most of the pages he gives little biographies on the special of animal and then gives a very brief two or three line paragrah about how he drew it. Mostly he just says I start with the body loosely and then really focused on the head. He repeats this line over and over again. The one other thing he talks about is what medium he used for each drawing. That's about the extent of the instruction though.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful drawings, no instruction...., December 8, 1999

By 

Kellie (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drawing Animals (Hardcover)

I truly enjoyed this book. Just flipping through the pages and admiring the beautiful sketches was enough to send me to the store to buy a new sketchbook. I only wish there had been more explanation of technique, some little nuggets of wisdom from the artist about his technique.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very good but not very instructive, August 7, 2008

By 

Joe "bookhunter" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Drawing Animals (Hardcover)

This is a great book. Victor Ambrus, the illustrator of this book, is a skilled draughtsman. Ambrus studied at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, and also at the Royal College of Art in London. He has illustrated around 300 books; I highly recommend his figure drawing book as well.

The drawings in this book are very expressive and appear deceivingly simple, however years of skill and practice are what enable a draftsman the ability to edit and reduce the amount of information he records. The drawings were originally done on toned paper but are reproduced in black and white, however the quality of the reproductions are very good.

Other reviewers have commented on the little instruction, this is true, the information in this book is kind of sparse. Perhaps this book would better suite people some kind of drawing or artistic background. I guess you have to take it upon yourself to learn by copying or just by trail and error.I found this book helpful enough, but i have had years of artistic training.

Ambrus does talk a little about paper, surfaces, and pencils (carbon pencil are his preference *not the same as charcoal), as a plus there is also zoological notes by Mark Ambrus (brother). This book serves as good reference material to understand how to approach drawing living, moving animals at home or at the zoo. The drawings alone are great to look at, and serve as a great learning tool if you decide to copy them. Overall this is a great book and priced right too!