With Drawing: Faces & Expressions, learn to draw detailed, realistic human faces in graphite pencil from basic shapes.
Perfect for beginning artists, Faces & Expressions offers a comprehensive introduction on how to draw faces and expressions—the most important aspects of an individual. First, learn everything about the tools and materials you need to get started, including selecting the right pencils, papers, and erasers for their work. Then discover tips for drawing and shading techniques, such as how to achieve volume, suggest depth, and render various hair and skin textures. With some knowledge of pencil drawing basics, begin mastering the art of drawing the human face through a series of helpful examples and easy-to-follow, step-by-step projects. Projects include a child portrait, an adult portrait, a senior portrait, and others that feature different techniques for capturing expressions and rendering features, including eyes, mouths, noses, and hands.
Featuring the stunning artwork of gifted artist Diane Cardaci, this 10.25 × 13.75–inch book features artwork designed to inspire a classical approach to rendering faces in graphite pencil. With its wide-ranging instruction, plethora of artist tips, and beautiful artwork, Faces & Expressions is the perfect resource for any beginning portrait artist.
Designed for beginners, the How to Draw & Paint series offers easy-to-follow guides that introduce artists to basic tools and materials and include simple step-by-step lessons for a variety of projects suitable for the aspiring artist. Drawing: Faces & Expressions allows artists to develop drawing skills by demonstrating how to start with basic shapes and use pencil and shading techniques to create varied textures, values, and details for a realistic, completed portrait drawing.
Drawing: Faces & Expressions is a book in the Learn to Draw Step by Step series. Due out 3rd March 2020 from Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint, it's 40 pages and available in paperback format. This appears to be a reformat and re-release of material first released in 2015 with the same title by the same author.
The titles in this series are all formatted in a similar manner and this one is no exception.
A short general introduction (10%) covers tools and materials including pencils, paper, blending tools, etc. The intro is followed by a group of non-specific tutorials on graphite techniques, shading, light, shapes and perspective. The following tutorial chapters are specific for different subjects (mostly faces) and include specific anatomy: eyes, noses, etc, leading to some full studies (aging beauty, at ease, deep in thought, all smiles). There is also a very abbreviated tutorial on rendering some surfaces and finishes in the form of accessories like earrings, ties, scarves, and hats.
I like these tutorial booklets, they're inexpensive and full of useful info for artists looking for improvement in their own work. It's nice to see them getting a re-release for a new audience of artists and learners.
Four stars - for what it covers and for a very short tutorial guide, it does the job admirably well.
Disclosure: I received an early eARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
