Drawing Tools & Materials: A practical guide to graphite, charcoal, colored pencil, and more (Artist Toolbox)

by Elizabeth T. Gilbert

Steven Pearce, Alain Picard, Paul Pigram, Marcio Ramos, Nathan Rohlander, and Eileen Sorg

Artist Toolbox: Drawing Tools & Materials covers all drawing media, from graphite and colored pencils to crayons and pastels, as well as their uses and interactions with traditional drawing surfaces. Learn how to work with specific drawing tools, and then use them to create your own artwork.

*Named One of the 54 Best Colored Pencil Drawing Books of All Time by BookAuthority*

Artist Toolbox: Drawing Tools & Materials first discusses how to create a drawing workspace—in particular, ensuring proper lighting and storage. This guide then details all of the most popular drawing media: the differences between and advantages of each, their purposes, and the effects that each tool can create.

The book covers every drawing tool, including all pencil grades, flat sketching pencils, charcoal and vine charcoal, white charcoal, conte crayons, conte pencils, colored pencils, and pastel. Surfaces and supports are discussed as well to provide a thorough introduction to everything you need to learn to draw. Step-by-step drawing projects round out the book.

Artist Toolbox: Drawing Tools & Materials provides tips, techniques, clear instructions, beautiful artwork, and detailed demonstrations for a comprehensive look at drawing. This book will make an expert out of anyone who wants to learn this classic technique.

The Artist Toolbox series includes useful, practical reference guides designed for beginning artists and art hobbyists interested in fully understanding the focus and function of essential art tools of the trade.

• ISBN13: 9781633226975
• Publish Date: 7 March 2019
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 23 March 2022
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Walter Foster Publishing
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 112
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Artist Toolbox: Drawing Tools & Materials is a new book in a series of manuals covering methods and supplies for the visual artist. Released 5th March 2019 by Quarto on the Walter Foster imprint, it's 112 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is, as the cover states, a practical guide to the essential tools of drawing. The book is laid out in a logical format, with an introduction, a good overview of surfaces and paper finishes (along with sidebars showing how different media work with different surfaces), and then moving along to the different types of drawing materials and tools. The book does not 'shill' for one particular company or product, there are a wide variety of brands of pencils, pastels, crayons, etc shown. The real value of the book for me comes in the following chapters covering drawing techniques and concepts along with 6 tutorial lessons exploring the different techniques. Most of the exercises have the same subject explored using different drawing materials to better illustrate the differences and capabilities of the tools (graphite, crayon, pastel, pen and ink, etc).

This is a no-frills, well written, concise manual for tools and supplies for drawing. It would make a good support book for a beginning drawing course or for self study.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.