Friday again, and this time we’re going to be looking at a lot of naked people. In an art sense of course; Life Drawing is one of the more important elements of our portfolios (even in the land of 3D) when we’re looking to get into university. This is because being competent in replicating the human form shows that you understand a lot of the key elements of art; Light, Form, Composition maybe depending on how you’ve done it, and the ability to see what’s really in front of you.
Over Christmas I received Life Drawing – A journey of self-expression as a gift, and I must say that it’s already helped me in some places. I fully expect it to be more useful once I start life drawing classes again, and because of that I wanted to share this review with you. The book contains 9 chapters, each talking about a different aspect of life drawing and providing exercises to carry out to improve your skills in each area. In addition, Bridget also has a very interesting introduction talking about why people find life drawing difficult, how the mind sees things, and how to use the book. It’s almost worth reading in its own right.
Anyway, before I ramble on too much about how awesome I find this book, let’s get to the three sections.
- Wide Range of Techniques. Some books on drawing have a tendency to only show one particular way of creating images, or possibly a few are mentioned. In this book there are almost as many techniques as exercises; there are a lot of exercises.
- Clear, Down-to-Earth Guidance. I love her writing style, it’s not patronizing, nor is it over-complicated. It delivers the message it needs to at any given point in a clear, controlled manner that somehow still manages to sound like a human being.
- Engaging Exercises. With drawing books, exercises are either tediously boring, so far advanced that you couldn’t hope to jump in and start with them, or they follow step-by-step guides that leave you little room for imagination but give you a nice result at the end. This book, instead, gives you interesting exercises that leave you enough room to interpret them your own way.
- Beautiful Illustrations. In an artistic sense, come on people! Joking aside, the drawings included are beautifully done, relevant and echo the rest of the book with regards to their diversity.
- Practical Concepts. Rather than following in the tradition of abstract and obscure, Bridget Woods’ Life Drawing instead takes those seemingly archaic concepts and introduces them to you in a practical manner that you can easily understand and apply.
- Too In-Depth to Dip. This is one of those books that, while useful, it’d be hard to dip into when you needed a quick piece of advice. It focuses on giving you a program (of sorts) that you can follow and improve overall, rather than a quick ‘here’s what you do’ approach.
- Portability. It’s a decent sized book (a little over A4) so you can’t slip it into a pocket or smaller bag to take with you and reading it on the bus would prove awkward (size and the naked woman – however tastefully done – on the cover).
- Competency Boost. Looking through the steps it’s easy to see how following the exercises and experimenting with the techniques would increase your ability tenfold. With the right amount of effort of course.
- Above and Beyond. After discussing how to draw the human form as you see it in front of you, she goes on to talk to you about your own style and approach in a useful chapter called ‘Personal Response and Self Expression’. It’s right at the end of the book, about the time when most people would consider shutting it and moving on. Well worth sticking around for.
Conclusion
One of those books that you’ll get, maybe skim through, maybe leave alone for a while, then one day you’ll see it again, look through it properly, and instantly want to go find someone to pose naked for you. I can see this sitting amongst my book collection for years to come, and further, I can see it being used semi-regularly.
Overall: 5/5
Value for Money: 5/5
Writing (Style and Content): 5/5
Artwork: 5/5
Re-Readability: 4/5
If this sounds like something you’d find incredibly heart-stoppingly useful, click the link below to see other product reviews and the manufacturer blurb on Amazon. Hope you enjoyed this review; Have a great weekend!
Hi Heather,
I really enjoyed your Monday piece about end of semester stress but to be honest, whilst I have that category bookmarked, I wouldn’t have read this if it hadn’t been for the link from James. However, you should be on commission because you sell the book beautifully 
Guess you must be fed up with us unartistic bloggers hanging out at your place
And I read that you’re just 19?! Wow, I wish I’d been as self-disciplined and focussed when I was 19.
Hey again Karen!
Nah its nice to see you all
to be honest I’m just glad to have people reading my blog at this stage… I think we can ‘blame’ James for that too. I’m in the same boat as you; if it weren’t for him I probably wouldn’t be reading several of the blogs I am now. Glad he took the time to point them out.
And aww thanks *blush* Technically for my review posts I’m in an affiliate scheme for Amazon but that hasn’t really picked up yet lol (I don’t expect it to for a long while to be honest =P ). As for focused… hm. Lets see if you’re still saying that in a month or two.
As always, thank you for stopping by and commenting ^_^
Absolutely amazing, I gotta tell you I love your work. Can you teach art like this?
TheInfoPreneur´s last blog ..Top Social Media Sites To Use – Guest Post
Thanks ^_^
As for teaching art… you mean by doing lots of life drawing, or by me teaching through the blog? lol, didn’t quite understand you, my apologies
Heather,
This is interesting. I might have to check this out a bit more.
You’ve really got some cool stuff on here. I’m not much into designing and such so this is a bit of a help for me.
Thanks!
Eric´s last blog ..Inspiration, Smart Work, Success | The InfoPreneur
Hey Eric, thanks for stopping by!
Just out of sheer curiousity, what sort of topics are you interested in? I know you say you’re not really into designing, but you know
I love reading, movies, music and truly enjoy helping other people. I’m an out there kind of guy you could say.
And you?
Eric´s last blog ..Pop Posts
That’s cool
I was a bookworm as a kid, I love writing, art, messing around with 3D (seriously, its overtaken my love of games), videogames
Films have taken on a whole new level of awesome since I started animating though, I’ll admit ^_^
Any particular sort you like?
Heather,
As it goes for films I really enjoy whatever it is I happen to be in the mood for. I’ll watch just about anything to be honest.
I really like action packed movies though.
You?
Eric´s last blog ..Pop Posts
That’s cool
Action is fun, especially when it’s believable and ‘done right’.
I guess as far as films go I like sci fi, fantasy, and just about anything so long as its got enough eye-candy or story for me. I can remember just liking all movies period (this was before I started learning 3D, possible coincedence
), but I’ve become a lot pickier of late…
Perhaps it’s like having old man syndrome; “They didn’t fight with those sorts of guns…. oh come on, like anyone could do THAT” but with 3D =P