Reviewed by annieb123 on
The Fundamentals of Drawing Nudes is a tutorial guide for life drawing by Barrington Barber. Due out in late 2021 from Arcturus Publishing, it's 96 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately; it makes it so easy to find information with the search function.
This is a very well written and information dense manual aimed at advanced beginners to intermediate drawing students as well as a refresher course for more advanced students. The first section of the book briefly covers recommended drawing tools and supplies. The author doesn't give specific brand recommendations (and I respect that he says experimentation is key, find what works and when inspiration strikes, branch out and try other tools).
The next chapters are arranged in multiple lessons thematically: proportion and anatomy, drawing the whole figure, developing form and movement, and technique and composition. Each lesson contains background theory and practice, alternatives to main points, and salient techniques as well as illustrative sketches. The author ties the theory to studies and sketches by famous artists showing how they approached similar poses and solved problems of ratio and perspective in their own work.
This book is a little above my current level of expertise, but there were a lot of valuable takeaways for me and I can see how consistent application of the exercises here will produce results (even for me, a beginner).
This would be a good choice for library acquisition and for artists, students, and hobbyists.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 28 August, 2021: Finished reading
- 28 August, 2021: Reviewed