Drawing Step-by-Step [Paperback]

Gerhard Gollwitzer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2002

Take a full year’s drawing course from this book, made for beginners. In simple-to-follow form, it shows you what to do, with detailed techniques and advice on infusing your drawings with feeling. Advance steadily through the steps, starting with the drawing materials. Understand how objects occupy space; basic stroking, composition, and light and shade. “Should be taken up by many teachers...they can enrich themselves as well as their students.” —American Artist.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Gollwitzer's book was originally published in Germany in 1959 and thus is in the classic, linear, literate mode of training. It hits all the points of the drawing media: the drawing surface, seeing and discovering, composition, light and shade, landscape, architecture, portraiture, and the methods of the masters. It's a full-year drawing course for beginners and deserves to be in all collections, especially at this price. Sanmiguel's offering briefly covers some of the same basics, but it emphasizes color and the digitally driven style of most modern texts: it is heavy on rapid, scattershot illustration and light on text. Nonetheless, it is a good volume but not nearly as comprehensive as Gollwitzer's title or Ian Simpson's Drawing School: The Complete Course.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Sterling (March 28, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806989017
• ISBN-13: 978-0806989013
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,974,129 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Superb..., February 15, 2005

By 

The Cat In The Hat (Detroit, MI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drawing Step-by-Step (Paperback)

This book is quite a gem!!! The drawings are a little "crummy" @ times, but what it TEACHES is priceless! Stuff your 8th grade teacher, or 12 grade teacher seems to have "forgotten" to teach you!!!

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent art sensibility..., June 11, 2010

By 

Peter A., Luft "pl2" (El Cerrito, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Drawing Step-by-Step (Paperback)

One of the reasons I like this book is the excellent reference drawings it provides. These are almost all by other, well accomplished artists, rather than being a star vehicle for the author's personal style, as so many other books in this genre seem to be. Very beautiful examples of drawing by Rembrandt, Dürer, Van Gough, support the student's discovery of their own individual "voice" in articulating the visual world of nature, perspective, the human form, texture, etc.

The author is somewhat opinionated, but it's clear this derives from a lifetime's passionate involvement in selfless discovery of the surrounding world. He systematically encourages the student to assimilate and metabolize the complete three-dimensional structure of a subject before attempting the distillation of form to the paper plane. A wonderful vacation companion.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars small and inexpensive but,....a poor instruction, June 28, 2004

By 

Bruce Bain "Romans 9:33/Remember Jackie Robinson" (Englewood, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Drawing Step-by-Step (Paperback)

Gerhard Gollwitzer's "Drawing Step By Step" is small in format, and therefore handy to carry. The cover price is low, so that's a plus; but it seems a rather rambling and confused introduction to drawing for beginners.

Some of the basics are there, but then, gee whiz, it's beginning to look like "Well...who hasn't published a HOW-TO-DRAW book?" Besides, this one is so dry and boring. I think that it would be of interest to people that like to watch the dryer-go-round, but ....seriously... It's just a clone of other, equally basic, yet poorly presented HOW-TO material. Was this book desperately needed? It certainly will not be replacing many of the other basic drawing books already in print.