annieb123's Review of Sketching Techniques for Artists (For Artists)

by Alex Hillkurtz

Learn dynamic sketching and watercolor techniques for creating cityscapes, landscapes, figures and faces, still lifes, and more, enhancing the story you want to tell with form, line, and color.

Discover incredible methods and tips for creating dramatic street scenes and vivid landscapes, and capturing dynamic figures and graphic architectural details. Artist Alex Hillkurtz—a top Hollywood storyboard artist, international workshop instructor, and Signature Member of the National Watercolor Society—presents fundamental concepts of sketching with pencil and pen for a number of popular genres. Discover simple ways to jot down spontaneous ideas in pencil, capture rough details in ink, and add watercolor for extra depth and interest.

Make sketching more enjoyable by adopting innovative techniques that will make a difference in your practice, and your artwork. No matter your experience or skill level, you’ll benefit from learning:

Compositions that draw the eye
How to avoid common sketching mistakes
Ways to create light and shadow to define shapes and add interest
Successful ways to use negative space
The importance of perspective in creating depth
Easy color washes that create drama

Get started today, and fill your sketchbooks with unique drawings and paintings you will be proud of.

The For Artists series expertly guides and instructs artists at all skill levels who want to develop their classical drawing and painting skills and create realistic and representational art.

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

In-Studio and Plein-Air Methods for Drawing and Painting is a new technique volume written by Alex Hillkurtz. Due out 12th Jan 2021 from Quarto on their Rockport imprint, it's 144 pages and will be available in paperback format.
The author is a skilled and well known storyboard artist who uses cinematic visuals to convey story and context. There is a useful amount of philosophy and technique contained in the instructions here to help artists not only render what they *see* but to tell the story of what they're seeing at the same time. Guided directions help the student convey who, what, where, when, and why in their renderings.

The layout is straightforward and easy to understand. The introduction includes a survey of the tools, materials, and basic techniques. The following chapters progress through exercise lessons in composition and perspective to give the reader a basic understanding and facility with visual storytelling, contrast, thumbnails, and different perspective views (and which to choose for specific situations).

The rest of the book provides specialized tutorial lessons grouped roughly thematically: still life, landscape, architecture, figures, and a final chapter showing several watercolor techniques. The book wraps up with an afterword from the author, abbreviated resources and influences lists for further reading, and a short author biography.

The overall feel of the book is technically rich, useful, and varied and I saw many things which got my fingers itching to jump in and start drawing. I'm not a professional artist by any stretch of the imagination, but there were a number of takeaways here which I will certainly incorporate in my drawing practice going forward.

Five stars. This would make a superlative selection (possibly bundled with drawing supplies?) for gift giving, as well as as a good support text for more formal drawing instruction/learning. The perspective tutorials were especially apt and well written.

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

Sketching Techniques for Artists (For Artists)

by Alex Hillkurtz

Reviewed by annieb123 on Jan 1, 2021

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