The Big Book of Realistic Drawing Secrets
Carrie Stuart Parks and Rick Parks
North Light Books
Nonfiction, Art
****
Description
Many people want to draw well, but can't figure out the secret that transforms wonky lines and scribbles into a true-to-life picture. They say practice makes perfect, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. The authors, professional artists, explain and demonstrate the simple lessons and techniques that can teach anyone how to draw realistically.
Review
With clear instructions and a little humor, this book offers basic drawing techniques with numerous demonstrations and step-by-step projects. Of course, no book can replace the practice it takes to truly master a skill like art, but practicing without understanding what goes into a realistic drawing, or what's gone wrong, only gets one so far. Some of the demonstrations got repetitive, and I believe Parks did a disservice by undervaluing "traditional" art subjects like perspective and anatomy, which help an artist understand what they're seeing; endless copies of pictures alone might produce a great artist, or it might produce a human photocopier, recreating shapes and lines with no sense of purpose or dimension. Despite that flaw, however, The Big Book of Realistic Drawing Secrets holds plenty of information for would-be artists, and practicing its methods should produce encouraging results.