Favorite Art Books
I have owned & read an amazing number of art books over the years from studying at University to creating lessons for teaching at my art school. The following are a list of books that I find myself referring my students to on a regular basis for more information & personal study.
- The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards—the basis for most of my teaching, also available as a workbook with a variety of drawing exercises, a must for any artist to own
- Color by Betty Edwards—colour theory can be an extremely confusing topic, although this book does have its confusing moments, it does a pretty good job of explaining colour theory in easy to understand language
- Drawing for Dummies by Brenda Hoddinott—despite it's title, this book has a wonderful variety of drawing exercises & techniques on many major drawing topics
- Idiot's Guide to Drawing People by Brenda Hoddinott—based on one section of the Drawing for Dummies book above, but expanded immensely, great instruction book for those interesting in drawing portraits, goes over measurements & placement of the features of people at different ages
- How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs by Lee Hammond—although I am not a huge fan of her techniques of gridding & blending, this book includes many fantastic illustrations of the different features of the face & descriptions on how to draw them, also has a great drawing exercise on gridding that works great on improving sighting skills
- Art School: A Complete Painters Course by Hamlyn—a good book overviewing the different materials & techniques used in watercolor, oil & acrylic
- Colored Pencil Solution Book by Janie Gildow & Barbara Newton—a great book for anyone wanting to learn the particulars of working with colored pencils, goes over a variety of techniques that can be used
- The Watercolourists Essential Notebook by Gordon MacKenzie—a good book for anyone interested in starting out with watercolors, goes over materials & techniques used with the medium
- Mastering the Art of Scratchboard by Norman Gaddini and Margie Wilson—although there are very few books on the medium of scratchboard, I was happy to discover this one, it describes the traditional methods of scratchboard very well
- The New Scratchboard by Charles Ewing—created by the developer of Claybord, this is not your traditional use of scratchboard, but shows the amazing things that can be done with the medium in very untraditional ways
