Life Drawing in Charcoal

This book is a great help for people drawing in charcoal or any medium.

I am a painter/illustrator and a professor of art and I knew Douglas when I was a student at The American Academy for 4 years, and later at Leo Burnett, he was a fine gentleman and a superior artist. I own a copy of Douglas Graves book and several others of his and treasure them along with Vandepool's book and George Bridgman's. In Doug's book, there is a consistent and exhaustively comprehensive approach to drawing and rendering the figure concentrating on drafting and rendering in tone with strong light and shade and shadow. The drawings are excellent. I would recommend it without reserve for anyone wishing to become a painter or an illustrator-I would also recommend several years of figure and anatomy study at a good art school. I consult all three books and many others in my own painting and illustrating, and teaching regularly. Doug's method is similar to that of the artists/Teachers, Mosby, and Vandenbrock, and theirs is one very good way to approach rendering the human figure and especially good training for painting in oil. You will not regret buying and using Douglas Graves book, and I would buy a copy of Bridgman as well as Vanderpool's along with it and then get thee to an art school if you want to make a living at painting and drawing.

Having learned to draw from Betty Edwards' "right brain" approach, this book is a natural follow-on. It teaches a painterly approach to drawing by capturing the masses, rather than the contours, in much the same way as DRSB does. I've struggled with contour drawing from the beginning, whereas I see the masses and tones very easily. The drawings in this book are beautiful, and it's great confirmation and affirmation of the DRSB training I've had. See my other review for DRSB.

I recently reviewed a book on life drawing where the author used a painstaking process to make gorgeous pencil drawings. He focussed on building up tone through meticulous hatching and shading. (And outlining and measuring - very obsessive but rewarding.)This book also focuses on tone rather than line, this time in charcoal and without the rather anal measuring and outlining.In fact it is far more accessible to the average life student, because the methods Graves uses can likewise be used in a life class. You don't need days and days of posing. Nor do you need the foundation drawing skills required by the other book. This is a book which can be put to immediate use.And very valuable it is, too. Expect an improvement in your results the first time you put the lessons taught by Graves to use. You will find yourself looking at your model as a collection of tonal areas, rather than lines, and consequently your drawings will have more shape to them. They will be brought to life.The essence of Graves' method is to work with two tools - charcoal and a chamois. Tones are built up with the charcoal, and the chamois is used to lighten them. One early exercise uses a "wash" of charcoal to create a background and then shapes are picked out with the chamois to make the drawing. Darker values such as shadows are added with more charcoal.The book starts with the basics. Tools, media and techniques. All illustrated and described, along with exercises illustrated for the student.Chapters are presented as exercises, each focused on a different topic. Lines and shadows, proportions, alignments, composition and so on, each building on the last. Step by step the final image is built up from broad tonal masses to detailed shapes. Construction lines are shown and at each step Graves tells us precisely what he is doing and why.I particularly liked the illustrated explanation of the difference between lines and outlines. The body has lines, such as the creases formed when folding the elbow, and outlines, being the imaginary line where the body finishes and the background begins. Drawing body lines reflects reality, but drawing outlines imposes something that isn't there - we don't see bodies surrounded by lines - if the background and the body are the same colour they blend into each other, they don't form a line. Graves uses negative shapes to help define the outline, a much more natural and satisfactory method.Graves shows and tells in a pleasant, consistent manner how to improve our techniques. There is something here for all levels, but this book is perhaps best used by an intermediate artist rather than a beginner or an expert. A few basic skills help to get right into it, and if you are already achieving good results you may not feel happy about changing your ways.Having said that, Graves provides plenty of flexibility and new ideas to add to an existing skill base. This book *will* help you improve your style.Highly recommended to anybody with an interest in drawi

Mr. Graves was one of my art school instructors and a friend for thirty years (he recently passed away), and this book first came out way back in 1969 or 1970 while I was still in his class. Naturally, I recommend this book highly because I learned his approach first hand and know it to be excellent. I distinctly remember him working on the head of one of my figure drawings in class and I was blown away with the beautiful results he produced. I feel lucky to have studied with him, to have known him as a friend and to have studied this book.The approach is one of "tone," instead of "line," i.e., working on charcoal paper with a middle tone dusting of charoal all over the paper, the lights are removed with a chamois and darker values are added using vine charcoal. The modeling of form proceeds from there, perhaps using additional tools: kneaded erasers, paper stomps, bristle brushes, sponge puffs, etc., depending upon what effects you are after.We used to work and rework these drawings from life for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, under Mr. Graves' supervision and helpful guidance.You cannot go wrong with this book.

I liked this book. It is well laid out and easy to follow his steps. The author make a very difficult task look easy. (It is not easy, trust me) Charcoal is my medium of choice and there are so few books on this specific subject. I wish this book showed more expressive approaches. A free more abstract approach with the figure playing hide & seek is more to my liking. I especially liked the price