Book Review: Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way

Submitted by  Teoh Yi Chie on  October 11, 2012 - 12:16 pm

Drawing and Sketching Secrets is a collection of wide ranging drawing tips and techniques compiled by Reader's Digest. There are four chapters covering the tools, the techniques, working on different subjects, drawing for submissions and displaying your work.

The inspiration are from the pointers, drawings and demonstrations. The tips cover basics such as the always helpful contour drawing, understanding values, composition, etc. But they are too short to get a full appreciation of how powerful those drawing fundamentals can be. In that sense, this is more of a companion book to a more dedicated drawing book.

The beautiful examples are created from a variety of medium and they will tempt you to try them. Many great artists have their work featured. Some are amazing, such as the photo-realistic looking harbour piece drawn with colour pencil by Graham Brace, or the meticulously hatched and crossed hatched ink drawings by Melissa Tubbs and Edmond Oliveros. It's inspiring to see what artists can do with just simple tools.

It's a good drawing book to get if you want to explore different styles.

Note that this book is also published by Search Press but under the name 'Compendium of Drawing Techniques'. Both books have similar content, so don't buy an extra copy by mistake.

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 01

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 02

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 03

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 04

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 05

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 06

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 07

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 08

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 09

Drawing and Sketching Secrets: 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way - 10

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Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp | Amazon.cn

Tags
drawing
instructional art book reviews
sketching tips
readers digest

Comments

Cameron Hampton (not verified) Fri, 19 Oct 2012 - 21:34

Wow! Such an honor to have my drawings included in this book with such a talented group of fellow artists! And to have one of my drawings on the cover (the bottom right hands drawing). Awesome. THANK YOU!
-Cam :-)

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