Book Review: Drawing People: How to Portray the Clothed Figure

While the title gives the idea that the main topic would be on drawing clothes and drapery, only 2 chapters out of the 6 are actually on that, which is about 60 pages out of 176 pages. It should have be simply titled "Drawing People" without that subhead.

Having said that, this is actually quite a good book on figure drawing for beginners.

You won't learn stuff like anatomy drawing, not the technical stuff anyway, but you get plenty of tips on drawing and creating good figure drawings. There are topics on proportion, perspective, value, rhythm and a bit on drawing head and hands.

The chapters on drawing clothes and drapery while short are still pretty good. They cover the different type of folds and how they are created. There are also fabric, hats and shoes.

Explanations in the book are helpful but stop short of giving a step-by-step tutorial on how you can actually draw them yourself. It's more of an idea book, one that would make a good complementary to an anatomy book.

4 out of 5 stars.

If you're specifically looking to draw clothes and drapery, check out Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery or Drawing Drapery from Head to Toe.