106 of 110 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Get this book!, April 15, 2007
This review is from: Keys to Drawing with Imagination: Strategies and Exercises for Gaining Confidence and Enhancing Your Creativity (Spiral-bound)
This is a great how-to-draw book, because it has a very smart strategy: finesse the negative self-criticism that keeps most of us from even beginning to do anything smacking of `art.'
When a six year old once asked her father, a college art instructor, what he did for a living, he said, "I teach people how to draw." Incredulous, she replied: "You mean they forget!?"
We all know why that is-- a censorious voice inside our heads keeps up a murderous barrage of intimidation: "You suck! You can't draw!" And we knuckle under.
Most books on how to draw just reinforce this anxiety. They aim to teach you how to draw realistically, which for most of us means there is just one way to get it right, and a thousand to screw it up. How to solve this problem? Cookie-cutter schematic diagrams are given for drawing everything from portraits to horses, but every time you draw one of those almond shapes for a head, then put in a cross on which to put facial features, you've become a robot and art, an assembly-line production. That's a far cry from the utter fearlessness we all had when armed only with crayons.
This book blows by all this tomfoolery because it cares little for cheap realism but much for real creativity. By not focusing on the "what" but the "how" this book lets you not only think like an artist, but become one. In its pages learning is doing as rules are jettisoned in favor of principles, suggestions and exercises that gently immerse you in the experience of drawing, so that before you know it, you're scribbling away as intently as any six-year old... or Van Gogh. Getting the terminally self-conscious to believe in themselves as artists is no mean achievement--it's damn hard to do as a matter of fact--but Bert Dodson does this beautifully. (Even more experienced artists will learn much from perusing this wise and thoughtful book.)
But don't misunderstand one thing. Dodson's emphasis on creativity isn't an injunction to just "do what you feel." Drawing books like that leave you hanging in the air with no chance for traction and forward-momentum. This book is not one of those. The format in Keys to Drawing with Imagination not only generates much artistic material to work with, but will channel your growing understanding, concentrating it, so that a genuine mastery emerges, confident enough to undertake its own experimentation and exploration. This book is designed to be like the Buddha's raft--once it carries you over the river, you leave it behind to go on your way. For, ultimately, making art is about being free.
I have only one small cavil to make about this superb drawing book. The title bites. With a subject as exciting as creative drawing, this title is like giving Marilyn Monroe a name like Norma Jean. It obviously hopes to cash in on the success of Mr. Dodson's earlier book, Keys to Drawing; I sense the money-grubbing hands of the publisher's bean-counters. My condolences to the author, a most witty and engaging man, who must be suffering grievously.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Teacher/Artist's view, March 29, 2007
This review is from: Keys to Drawing with Imagination: Strategies and Exercises for Gaining Confidence and Enhancing Your Creativity (Spiral-bound)
Thank you, Bert Dodson, for Drawing With Imagination. It is a much needed elixir for both my creative and professional life. I've been an Art teacher for thirty years and I know from experience that you can teach almost anyone how to draw and paint well. Learning to use the tools is the easy part. What's hard is stimulating the imagination and the confidence to be creative.
Dodson's new book is a brimming reservoir of inspirational projects and ideas for the artist or teacher. Some of these exercises are so freeing, blocks to creativity seem to melt away leaving a fresh landscape of fertile ground. Using Bert's book as a basis for lessons my high school beginning students are stumbling onto originality and my advanced "Portfolio" students are discovering new directions for their work.
Every teacher and artist needs a copy of this book at their fingertips if only for an infusion of energy for your classroom and studio. I didn't realize till I got my copy, I've been waiting for this book for a long time.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fairly Good Book Overall, October 28, 2007
This review is from: Keys to Drawing with Imagination: Strategies and Exercises for Gaining Confidence and Enhancing Your Creativity (Spiral-bound)
While I am not a beginner, I thought this book might offer creative drawing exercises and ideas, something to feed my imagination. I was right. The chapters are brief and to the point with exercises that stretch beyond the usual. The illustrations of finished work as well as those of the actual exercise steps are excellent. A worthwhile book, not just a showcase of an artist's work... but not one for a beginner. Some of the chapters show nearly finished drawings as illustrations of the concept presented; there's no useful step-by-step instruction. But overall, most of the chapters are very good. Not a must-have, but still worth the money.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
