Life Drawing in Charcoal :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

A Different Approach

2008-02-28
This book's main strength is that Graves teaches how to draw the figure using tonal masses instead of a more linear approach .This book teaches the student to draw using vine charcoal with a few exceptions in the gallery at the end. The theory and methods presented do work and are an interesting and useful way of drawing .The author explains his method of drawing is more amenable to those who wish to paint , as painting is less concerned with lines and more with masses of color and or value.A valid point in my opinion. Most of the drawings are nice but a few are iffy and some are crude .The chapter on "keeping the figure from looking stiff" may be correct from what he writes but it is laughable from the standpoint that some of the drawings in this book are exactly that: STIFF LOOKING . How one can contradict oneself like this and not notice is strange. Also sometimes the limbs look pasted on the figures instead of looking like they belong there .Then there is the drawing of the guy pulling on a rope; it suffers from the look of someone that has been in the same pose for hours and winds up looking like he is tired of holding the rope. It really lacks the action and movement that is really required for such a drawing. Now despite my complaints of a few cruddy drawings I think you should look more to this book for the interesting method it presents and not just the quality of every single drawing . The author is capable and in more than one example it shows .
The ones I didn't like are maybe "hurry up" drawings he did to get the book finished quickly . If you want to draw figures in charcoal and want to use a tonal mass approach, then this is worth checking out .

Pity the drawings are weak.

2006-03-29
Graves goes on about scaring the student with such phrases as "plunging immediatley into frantic production of your own thing." The entire book is a number tricks. I don't object to "tricks" if the ends result in a good drawing. The first rule of art is ; there no rules. I agree with many of Graves' didactic, time tested academic step by step progress. However what I see here is not unlike many of the popular TV how to draw/paint....Like ME. In fact Graves' drawings are rather poor. His concepts about tone and form are sound. My fear is that is that want of the student to advance in there truest of artforms; the charcoal drawing. It is the purest of all medium. The art of drawing is the most important vehicle to which the artist can move on to painting, printmaking etc.; not that that is even important. A good drawing can stand alone and equal to any painting. If you really wish to draw well I would suggest "The Natural way to Draw" which is also very exercize driven and only people who truly want to draw well will follow this regimine. Nicholides does not present his own work as an example of how to draw; but rather chooses to present and challenge the student to work and work hard. I believe this a better way in which to convey the principles of draughtsmanship.

THE TWO WAYS

2004-12-25
I am a painter/illustrator and a professor of art and I knew Douglas when I was a student at The American Academy for 4 years, and later at Leo Burnett, he was a fine gentleman and a superior artist. I own a copy of Douglas Graves book and several others of his and treasure them along with Vandepool's book and George Bridgman's. In Doug's book, there is a consistent and exhaustively comprehensive approach to drawing and rendering the figure concentrating on drafting and rendering in tone with strong light and shade and shadow. The drawings are excellent. I would recommend it without reserve for anyone wishing to become a painter or an illustrator-I would also recommend several years of figure and anatomy study at a good art school. I consult all three books and many others in my own painting and illustrating, and teaching regularly. Doug's method is similar to that of the artists/Teachers, Mosby, and Vandenbrock, and theirs is one very good way to approach rendering the human figure and especially good training for painting in oil. You will not regret buying and using Douglas Graves book, and I would buy a copy of Bridgman as well as Vanderpool's along with it and then get thee to an art school if you want to make a living at painting and drawing.

Good but.....

2003-09-12
I really liked the book as others share in their review. But, I guess I really need some basics in regards to a break down. This book covers how to just get in and do the whole body, slowly laryering with charcoal. I like working in the charcoal, it is fast and easy to work with in regards to fixing mistakes. Once charcoal is in place, other mediums can be used over it if you are wanting to make your drawing into a painting. It is a good book though. The fours stars is only because I was expecting some breakdown of the figures.

Lovely!

2003-02-23
You can learn a lot abt the human anatomy and charcoal techiques. Good buy!

Akin to "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"

2002-10-07

Innovative method of drawing by tonal masses. Step-by-step demonstrations, with over 200 illustrations, cover foreshortening, drawing the face, and other aspects.

Bringing Charcoal to Life

2002-01-30
I recently reviewed a book on life drawing where the author used a painstaking process to make gorgeous pencil drawings. He focussed on building up tone through meticulous hatching and shading. (And outlining and measuring - very obsessive but rewarding.)

This book also focuses on tone rather than line, this time in charcoal and without the rather anal measuring and outlining.

In fact it is far more accessible to the average life student, because the methods Graves uses can likewise be used in a life class. You don't need days and days of posing. Nor do you need the foundation drawing skills required by the other book. This is a book which can be put to immediate use.

And very valuable it is, too. Expect an improvement in your results the first time you put the lessons taught by Graves to use. You will find yourself looking at your model as a collection of tonal areas, rather than lines, and consequently your drawings will have more shape to them. They will be brought to life.

The essence of Graves' method is to work with two tools - charcoal and a chamois. Tones are built up with the charcoal, and the chamois is used to lighten them. One early exercise uses a "wash" of charcoal to create a background and then shapes are picked out with the chamois to make the drawing. Darker values such as shadows are added with more charcoal.

The book starts with the basics. Tools, media and techniques. All illustrated and described, along with exercises illustrated for the student.

Chapters are presented as exercises, each focused on a different topic. Lines and shadows, proportions, alignments, composition and so on, each building on the last. Step by step the final image is built up from broad tonal masses to detailed shapes. Construction lines are shown and at each step Graves tells us precisely what he is doing and why.

I particularly liked the illustrated explanation of the difference between lines and outlines. The body has lines, such as the creases formed when folding the elbow, and outlines, being the imaginary line where the body finishes and the background begins. Drawing body lines reflects reality, but drawing outlines imposes something that isn't there - we don't see bodies surrounded by lines - if the background and the body are the same colour they blend into each other, they don't form a line. Graves uses negative shapes to help define the outline, a much more natural and satisfactory method.

Graves shows and tells in a pleasant, consistent manner how to improve our techniques. There is something here for all levels, but this book is perhaps best used by an intermediate artist rather than a beginner or an expert. A few basic skills help to get right into it, and if you are already achieving good results you may not feel happy about changing your ways.

Having said that, Graves provides plenty of flexibility and new ideas to add to an existing skill base. This book *will* help you improve your style.

Highly recommended to anybody with an interest in drawing the nude. Especially valuable to students attending life class for the first time.

A 5.5-star sweet love affair; and I am glad I am involved! 2001-12-18
I suddenly feel like beating around the bush a little here. So please bear with me.

Picture this: You graduated from high school, went to college, left your high school's sweetheart behind, found a new girl, then another one, then yet another... (I could go on and on), graduated from college, got a job, and (with any luck) married one of the girls you dated in college. Twenty years had gone by, you suddenly found yourself at the high school reunion party. A glance at your old-time highschool sweetheart all of sudden brought back a world of love and hope. Whew! What gives?! You suddenly found how attractive and desirable your highschool sweetheart was! (And if fate played tricks on you, beside her was a 300-pound hairy-chested, bald-headed husband of hers...)

So what does all that have anything to do with this book, you ask?

Well, it has EVERYTHING to do with this book. As you WILL agree with me, to become an artist in any "respectable" medium (oil, watercolor, pastel, and the likes), one has to start with drawing. The most highly-disciplined practice is figure drawing. Usually, one would start with drawing the likeness, USING LINES. Then comes positive, negative spaces, mass, tone, then colors, etc.

In this book, however, the author presents an approach of drawing figures using charcoal as medium and using mass (rather than LINES) to achieve the effects.

The book is well-written and very readable. I finished the book from cover to cover at one sitting of several hours. To keep it brief and helpful, the following are what covered in the book:
1) Materials
2) Values, tonal masses
3) Figure proportions; male and female distinctions
4) Foreshortening
5) Movement and muscles
6) Different modes of charcoal rendering

In my opinion, painters at intermediate and advanced levels may enjoy the book more than beginners. The reason is mainly because "traditional" training usually have beginners learn to achieve likeness using lines (which, by the way, is already hard for a majority of beginners). In this case, the author presents seeing masses, tones, and values as a way to achieve likeness and gesture. Needless to say, this approach is rather familiar to folks who have done some painting in oil.

Now back to my "love affair": as an oil painter myself, I rarely use charcoal for "serious" work. It is a nice medium to achieve shadow, light, and dark. However, I think (and so do you), work in other mediums (oil, acrylics, watercolor, pastel, etc.) shows the maturity of the artist. After all, the boy has become "the man", college graduated, married and all.

But you could be dead wrong after reading this book. Figure drawing using charcoal presented by the author is one of the reasons that I love figure drawing (although I may use different approaches - including using lines, masses, or both). The beauty and nobleness of the female figures are breathtakingly rendered in this book. It is a 5.5-star sweet love affair; and I am glad I am involved in it.

Need I say more? Now you know why looking at your old-time highschool's sweetheart at the highschool reunion party just makes you want to be a boy of teenage age again.

A 5.5-star sweet love affair; and I am glad I am involved! 2001-12-14
I suddenly feel like beating around the bush a little here. So please bear with me.

So what does all that have anything to do with this book, you ask?

In this book, however, the author presents an approach of drawing figures using charcoal as medium and using mass (rather than LINES) to achieve the effects.

Need I say more? Now you know why looking at your old-time highschool's sweetheart at the highschool reunion party just makes you want to be a boy of teenage age again.

The Tonal Approach 2001-12-11
Mr. Graves was one of my art school instructors and a friend for thirty years (he recently passed away), and this book first came out way back in 1969 or 1970 while I was still in his class. Naturally, I recommend this book highly because I learned his approach first hand and know it to be excellent. I distinctly remember him working on the head of one of my figure drawings in class and I was blown away with the beautiful results he produced. I feel lucky to have studied with him, to have known him as a friend and to have studied this book.
The approach is one of "tone," instead of "line," i.e., working on charcoal paper with a middle tone dusting of charoal all over the paper, the lights are removed with a chamois and darker values are added using vine charcoal. The modeling of form proceeds from there, perhaps using additional tools: kneaded erasers, paper stomps, bristle brushes, sponge puffs, etc., depending upon what effects you are after.
We used to work and rework these drawings from life for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, under Mr. Graves' supervision and helpful guidance.
You cannot go wrong with this book.