A bloggie friend asked if this book was worth buying, and as I started to reply the answer got a bit too long and I thought a POST - yeah :). Last week my long awaited "Drawing Lab" book arrived. Once I took it out of the mailbox and gazed at the cardboard envelop I was a little concerned as it looked a bit small for the book, which while not overly expensive it was not cheap either. Ripping open the cardboard envelope (that's the only way to do it :) ) I saw a 8.5 x8.5 square formated book, which while a bit smaller than normal was also VERY thick. It has 144 pages, semi-hard cover, beautifully put together and bound. If the binding last (I only say that because it is printed in China and I am guessing assembled there) it should be able to handle my household's little fingers pawing through the pages without to much wear and tear.
Now to the actual content. The cover illustration is wonder. I like the author/artist Carla Sunheim style of writing. It is like listening to a friend chat about art. There are 52 exercise dvided into 7 overall themes. Each exercise has wonderful illustrations and clear instructions. Some of them include some educational/ historical information about the exercise, and others show how the exercise can be developed into an actual piece of art. The exercises vary in the materials they use but most will be easily on hand or could be gotten from an art and craft shop.
The thing I like best about the book is that while all exercise are for adults, children can easily do many of them. A kid may not get the same results as an adult, but for example in one exercise you add random watercolour brush strokes to a piece of paper and when dried you look at it and see what you can see. Once you see it you then use a pen to draw the outline of what you see. Of course an adult can take it a step or two further but what a great exercise for a kids imagination. Also Carla's illustrations in the book are so beautiful that kids will just love to look at them and want to try draw them (as my 5 year old did).
Cons... honestly I have not found any yet, the only one is that is a bit pricy but if you got $22.99USD (reccommended retail) to spare and are looking for a great inspirational art book go for it. I got my from www.bookdepository.co.uk for €11.74 (shipping included), its looks a bit more expensive than amazon.co.uk but the latter kills me on shipping .
Cheers
Spent the week doing a couple sketches for a book to most likely hit the press this time next year... yes it is a bit early to put pencil to paper but when the mood it hits it is a good thing to grab it. But even with all good intentions my pace was rather slow and hampered in someways the monsters were home two days this week and the youngest is still very mummy oriented at 4yrs. Anyway here is a preview of a sketch. The little spider is annoyed that his web has been broken. Well off to either work on more sketches, contemplate how to colour them or be cinderella to the monsters.
