Anatomy for the Artist: A Comprehensive Guide to Drawing the Human Body

Whether a beginner at painting and drawing, or a pro who needs that "artist assistant" to help workout some of the more difficult renderings of the human figure, this book will pull through for you. As a beginner it will teach you what took me years to learn when I studied art in college...in all seriousness. It is a very comprehensive guide to accuracy of form and features and even facial expressions and those hard-to-draw forms such as a person with their chin tilted upwards or showing foreshortening in form or limbs. When I feel "stuck" on a sketch or painting and just can't get something to look right, if it is a person...my solution always lies herein. There are even action poses such as a person running, jumping, etc, and lots of hand poses and showing you how to accurately divide the human figure or curve it correctly so you hit accuracy in realism every time. There are two books that are my figure drawing and painting "go to" guides. This is one and "Anatomy for the Artist" by Barrington Barber is the other. However, the second book is now out of print and quite honestly I could use only this one and work out any details I need. You will not only be able to more accurately depict the human form, but you'll also be able to utilize shading more accurately in your works through this book. Each part of the body is shown in many, many poses and angles...you are sure to be guided through as though you have your own instructor at your side...

Just as medical students study anatomy, artists also need to study human anatomy. Artist's anatomy is different from medical anatomy. Artist's anatomy is also quite complex and requires time for studies. Body movements for each plane aspect, musculature, and bone structure are demonstrated for each part of the body with included movements. In All About Anatomy, bone structure and human musculature are easier to grasp and understand than in almost any other such book. Synthesizing anatomy into a unified whole and anatomy in practice sections of the book then create a basis on which the artist develops graphic and pictorial art. Barron's All About Anatomy For The Artist is well recommended for its profound knowledge. The accompanying text is exceptionally good throughout the book. An understanding of anatomy develops slowly as the artist practices and produces art. In addition to your other artist's anatomy books, this is going to be a good reference book.

It's beautiful. I love it. As a student of the Alexander technique I've looked at various anatomy books and atlases, but this is the one I love.

This book holds some of the basic principals for the artist attempting their first human drawing. Nothing is over explained and over worded, yet it still gets the point across. For the experienced person, it might be redundent, but still could be helpful. The pictures inside are all drawn, which gives the new comer a sense of what they are looking at doing. Shadowing is well developed, and the people are average. None of the artist drawings inside are abnormal people, so you won't always be drawing the bodybuilder. I give this book a thumbs up, and would suggest it for the high school age artist who is serious about going a step further with their art.