Project: Sharing Art Books! (1)

One of the objectives I wrote for my project is to create a working outline of skills and knowledge I'd like to master and obtain. The purpose of doing this is twofold: 1) to lay out a clear path for my artistic growth and 2) to start studying how best to teach artistic skills to others--specifically drawing. Today I started getting deep in my research. 

Over the years I've accumulated a nice little collection of art books. Probably the first one I got was given to me as a gift from my grandparents. I was a sophomore in high school: Clem Robins' The Art of Figure Drawing, The Complete Guide to Classic Drawing Techniques (2003). I still go back to it from time to time. One thing that I'll always remember from that book (paraphrasing) is that you should "get out as many books on drawing and anatomy as possible. Each one will provide the information in a slightly different way, and there are gold nuggets in all of them." This is very true.

These are three library books I've been looking through. The first one I would recommend to an intermediate-level student who has gotten past the first hurdle of accurately depicting what they see. The second, I would recommend to any teacher of drawing--the first 16 pages are worth it. The third is a brilliant introduction for the complete beginner (as the title suggests) and for the teacher of 4-12th grade art students. 

1. Drawing: A Search For Form, Joseph Mugnaini and Janice Lovoos (Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1965)

I started reading this book last night. I'm not exaggerating: I was floored! I've never read an anatomy book which gives such a comprehensive explanation of human anatomy. There are an abundance of anatomy books that overwhelm you with their detail and thoroughness with naming every tiny muscle. Those books have their place, and students should study those,too. But memorizing the names for body parts is a useless ability without having the understanding of WHY we are structured the way we are. This book brings in a succinct discussion of vertebrate evolution:

"The structure of an animal is the shape of survival. All animal life has maintained itself by modifying its shape to comply with changing environment. Thus each individual part of animal structure is functional. ...
The body of the first land animal was not supported by its legs, but by the earth itself. To function efficiently, the body cavity needed to be lifted from the earth. It took a few million years of adaptation to life on land before it could run, fly or stand upright." (p.13).

This book has simple, clear diagrams. I'm going to use this book to teach.

2. Drawing By Seeing, Hoyt L. Sherman (Hinds, Hayden & Eldridge, Inc., 1947)

This book is gold.It gives fourteen essential condition for a drawing class. Here they are in summary. They're expanded in detail in the book:

1. The eyes must be trained to see with perceptual unity.
2. Drawing must be accepted as an artificial form, and students must be taught to convert the multi-dimensional quality of things in nature into the two-dimensional terms of the paper.
3. Students must develop a sense for positional relationships and learn to experience other qualities of space and form in terms of positional relationships. 
4. Students must develop an ability to see familiar objects in terms of visual qualities, and they must develop this ability to the degree that prior associations with such objects will have only a secondary or a submerged role during the drawing act. 
5. Seeing must be developed as an aggressive act.
6. An image seen with perceptual unity must be drawn without the interference of any competing image which might arise externally or in the mind of the student.
7. The attitude of the students during their work must be such as to allow the image seen with perceptual unity to be the organizing agent in the reaction. 
8. As seeing moves into drawing during the seeing-and-drawing act, the students must have a clear opportunity to convert visual relations and reactions into kinesthetic and tactile relations and reactions.
9. The whole body must be free to participate in the kinesthetic reactions. 
10. The thrill of the experience for the students must flow primarily from the process of seeing-and-drawing; the drawings, as end-products, must be taken as instrumental to experiencing the process.
11. The way must be open for each individual student to express his unique reactions. 
12. Seeing-and-drawing must be taught through experience in seeing-and-drawing; there are no substitutes.
13. The guiding discipline must come from the requirements of the process of seeing-and-drawing, and not from the personal authority of the teacher.
14. The program of teaching must have unity from beginning to end; experiences offered in the program must have an orderly progression, with careful timing, so that each act or phase helps to develop and unfold each subsequent act or phase. (p. 5-6)

"Seeing must be developed as an aggressive act."  BAM!!!

3. Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner, Claire Watson Garcia (2003, Watson-Guptill Publications)

This is your basic essentials. It covers early perceptual exercises like the classic upside-down drawing exercise, sighting techniques, and goes into explanation of value, light and shadow. It doesn't go into too much technical detail, which is perfect for teaching the beginner how to see.

I'll probably talk about these books some more, as well as others. I wish I could just copy and paste the entire text of Drawing: A Search For Form here, because it's that good.