Customer Reviews

Henry Yan's Figure Drawing (Techniques and Tips)

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I recently purchased this book and was surprised to find that the author had the book published himself. Henry Yan is an instructor at Academy of Art University in San Fransisco. I'd love to have him as an instructor when I was a student, but alas, was in another state and another school. This would be the next best thing.

What this book is not: "How to draw Anatomy" if you're looking for a book that talks about proportion, and details of each part of anatomy, I'd suggest finding another book. However, I wouldn't dismiss this book.

Henry Yan gives you basic tips and examples as well as a time frame to when he did each piece. I find that very valuable to give people an idea how long they should record information, and what are the most important aspects in covering the figure in a short or long time frame.

Yan gives a nice little primer on shadows, and various types of figure study exercises. I have to say how he's able to capture the figure so beautifully in charcoal demonstrates how much he is a master of his craft.

There are a few drawbacks to the book. One of which is that while the book is very well produced, the binding and such, the cover is very prone to getting dirty. If you're using charcoal and looking at his book, I'd recommend gloves because I had a few prints within seconds. Perhaps make an edition with a less white cover will make it less of a problem or different paper type like gloss.

The only other problem is that I wish Yan had given a bit of time to discuss the tools he was using. While he demonstrated some beautiful strokes, a person who is new to the charcoal medium wouldn't know how to sharpen charcoal and how to keep it preserved, you'll have to find another book or look up the information as I did.

I would say overall this book is definitely a keeper, the illustrations have such personality to them, and I REALLY love the fact Henry Yan included so many different models for study. From the old, to the obese, male and female. It's nice to see such an array of models presented in the book, as each figure has their own personality.

I'd definitely purchase this book again as a gift to a friend or any other person highly interested in drawing the figure. It also helps that Yan is a very pleasant person to deal with and you can feel his optimistic personality in his book.

I have been studying figurative art for several years and own most of the figurative books on the market. The difference between other books and Mr. Yan's book is that other books teach you how to copy the figure where as Mr. Yan's book show you how to create figurative art. The powerful drawings in this book make me think about values in a new way. If you are into figurative drawings, this book is a must have.

Henry Yan's drawings have a sense of dynamics and power that set his artwork apart. When I first saw that he had a training book on his technique for drawing I immediately went ahead and ordered a copy. It was to my surprise that Mr. Yan sends these out himself and it took barely three days to reach the Netherlands (Europe) where Amazon usually needs more than ten days.

The artwork in the book itself makes you reach out and grab your charcoal, pencil and paper and start off. His clear illustrations on various techniques will guide you to the essential techniques that he himself uses: the variations of broad andcontrasty area's with fine linework instill a magnificent power in his work.

A beautiful book, very well laid out with high quality printed examples of his drawings. Hopefully Henry Yan will repeat this great text for his painting techniques and provide us with a companion book in luscious full color paintings.

Thanks Henry for a fast service and a great inspirational resource.

Albert Kiefer

Length:: 0:27 Mins

Henry Yan is a painter and teacher at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

This book focuses on the tips and techniques in drawing human figures and portraits. All the paintings included are from his class demonstrations and workshop studies developed from many years of teaching. And all drawings are done from live models.

There are about 20 step-by-step demonstrations from quick 20-minute sketches to long poses. He shows us how he draws and teaches us what to look out for, and the various techniques to approach figure drawing -- lines, mass, shadows, etc.

He has a very cool painterly style and energy to his figures that I like. Some pieces are created like chinese paintings, not drawing in too much details to invite viewers to fill in the details (in their mind) themselves.

It's an inspiring book filled with beautiful images, recommended to anyone into figure drawings.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

If you are a fan of the works of Harley Brown, Ramon Kelly, or even Anthony Ryder you will enjoy this book. The book shows you how to approach the undertaking of life drawing. The most important aspect of the work is the life that is captured in the drawing. That which is presented is that which is important, and everything else fades into the background. If you are looking for highly detailed, everything in the picture in crisp focus, then this book might not be for you. This is more in the realm of the foundation work for a pastel or oil painting. The beauty of it is that the work can stand alone without going any further. It is somewhat impressionistic in the approach.

This book is a treasure by a true master draftsman. It is not an understatement to say that it is brilliant. Henry Yan is a ridiculously talented soul who teaches out of San Francisco. He paints, he draws. He also does one other thing (that I know of) really well; he is responsive to his customers and mails out the product extremely fast.

Thank you for a wonderful tome, Mr. Yan!!

Like many aspiring artists, I have virtually a library of books on "how to draw" this and "how to draw" that. Mr. Yan's book, however, goes far beyond the general "how to" and teaches a sense of aesthetics, and a sensitivity towards drawing the figure that I haven't seen in any book before. He gives very useful tips for both long and short pose figurative drawings, and also introduces various techniques, step by step. Rarely, if ever, have I picked up a book and been so inspired to draw. Mr. Yan's book is a culmination of many years of experience, and he has been kind enough to share his knowledge and his amazing talent with us. Highly recommend to any aspiring artist.

This guy really knows how to draw. Quite amazingly well. But the notes included didn't really teach me anything revolutionary. It still has a vague "Step1: Draw lines. Step2: Now render the head perfectly" to it. It's fine to release a book of your figure drawings and expect people to figure out the rest, but when you put Techniques and Tips in the title and draw like *that* I'm expecting a little more. Do a Google search on Kevin Chen's figure drawing notes if you want some better detailed theory/methods to break down the figure properly.

Henry Yan was my professor for two semesters a couple of years ago, and watching him draw was like getting to watch the old masters at work- and then he'd turn around and tell us "that's all you have to do." My favorite part of the class was watching the demos and watching him flip through his drawing pad searching for a clean page, because we got to catch glimpses of all his other demos, which were equally amazing. I always thought that there needed to be a book about him, or by him, because I have simply never seen a better figure artist. I was always disappointed when I would find drawing books for figure drawing where the author tried to teach realism, which they were rarely good at anyways. If you want the most inspiring, amazing figure drawing book there is, you should get this book. When I heard he had made it, I ran down to the illustration office and got my copy as soon as class was over. This, and Barbara Bradley's Drawing People are pretty much the best pieces in my art instruction library (sadly I never got to take a class with Barbara, since she recently retired from teaching).

Henry's book is finally available to the public. His decades of artistic knowledge compiled into a masterful book of figure drawing. This is a great book for those wanting to know the secrets to successful figure drawing, or simply want a book to witness beautiful art.

This is a really highly simplified view of drawing where the author is an expert and you are left baffled by the examples. I just didn't get a lot out of this. It's like staring at a Rembrandt and hearing someone tell you to paint like that. All you really know is that this is possible and with hundreds of hours of work in front of expensive live models, you can do this too.