Keys to Drawing

Keys to Drawing is an excellent teaching or learning tool for the beginning artist or one hoping to improve upon his/her ability. The instructions are easy to understand and the illustrations are clear enough that even a beginner can immitate them. The author also includes drawings from Monet, Matisse, Rembrandt, and other well-known artists. He starts off very easy with drawing a pair of feet and continues with drawing various things with perspective and depth. The drawings are all in black and white, which makes it somewhat easier to render than color, but makes it hard to see certain things. I highly recommend it for the beginning or avid artist. Happy drawing!!

I'm drawing for fun and never had any formal training on any art subjects. This books gives you great guidelines on drawing. It contains numerous exercises that help develop your personal style. Going through the exercises, I could see tremendous improvements in a relatively short time

I don't believe there is one perfect book on drawing but if I was asked to recommend one for someone either just beginning or needing to improve their abilities, "Keys To Drawing" would probably be it. Generally well written and complete; the author offers good ideas without being intolerant of other approaches (apparently a rarity in art instruction) or of doing thing slightly out of sequence. It's especially helpful for someone who is not in an academic setting. My next suggestion would be to begin to put together a small library over time of the very best books on drawing including Nicolaides' "The Natural Way to Draw"; some of Hale's anatomy works; Guptill's "Pen and Ink..."; etc. Drawing well demands a sincere desire to learn, some knowledge and a certain amount of real practice; this book will help on your journey - from someone who's "been there".

Possibly the best drawing book ever written on the subject of drawing with the exception of Kimon Nicolades book " The Art of Drawing" Bert Dodson has made it very interesting and fun to learn how to draw.

As a high school art teacher I have used this book for 2 years in my art classes. It introduces concepts in each chapter and gives clear instructions and goals on drawing. This is not a how-to book where your are told how to draw faces or animals. Each chapter builds on the previous chapter. Even experienced artists will find some of the exercises fascinating. I have drawn right along with my students and have found my skills improving too. The text is clear and the drawings accompanying the text are very descriptive.