How to Draw Animals, Jack Hamm
You should try to draw from nature when possible, or photographs when available, but as with any subject a good idea of what you’re drawing, and pointers on the details to look for, can be invaluable. Jack Hamm, in this book and his other classic “how to” books, approaches minute details with a passion that can almost be described as clinically insane. If you need a quick reference for how to construct a drawing of almost any type of mammal, this is it.
Creative Perspective for Artists and Illustrators, Ernest Watson
While other books explain perspective more thoroughly, or more engagingly, or even in a more organized fashion, there is no book that does quite what this one does: it explains when and why you need to use perspective, as well as how. There are also some simply amazing ideas on how to “cheat” – either by taking shortcuts or by exaggerating/distorting perspective for illustrative effect. “Creative” indeed!
Dynamic Figure Drawing, Burne Hogarth
Some rather accomplished artists are less than enthusiastic about this author, but overall I think this is the best book available on the subject it covers: drawing the human figure without a model, from all angles of foreshortening (”in deep space”, as Hogarth describes it). I’ve seen people just copy Hogarth’s somewhat mannered style, and get nothing else out of this book. That’s not the point! Remember – you don’t buy a technique book just to copy the drawings; study the system and you’ll learn a lot!
I’d also recommend Hogarth’s Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery. If you like the way I do clothes in my pictures, then I should note that my skills at observing the effects of cloth benefited greatly from that book. On the other hand, if you don’t like how I draw clothing, then you know a good book to avoid!
The Fantasy Art Techniques of Tim Hildebrandt, Tim Hildebrandt
This is nothing more or less than a look into the mind of one of the great Fantasy illustrators. He has good things to say on subjects ranging from the conceptual to the specific: color, composition, using models, even putting together your portfolio. There’s great advice from beginning to end. And it’s pretty, too.
Color Mixing the Van Wyk Way, Helen Van Wyk
Welcome to my Studio, Helen Van Wyk
If you’re learning about Oils, these are the books for you! Helen Van Wyk was a fantastic instructor; if you see her “Welcome to my Studio” TV shows on in your area, you should watch them without fail! These books do a great job of distilling her great knowledge and presenting them in a friendly and lucid manner. There is a lot of great advice here for Digital artists, too (if obliquely) about practical color theory, lighting, and most importantly Lost edges.
Oil Painting Techniques and Materials, Harold Speed
I’ll end this list with perhaps my favorite book on the subject of painting. As the title implies, this is a book about Oil Painting, though it covers general areas very well such as composition and aesthetics.
However, it’s an amazing book, not only for the things covered in the title (traditional realism techniques in oil) but for Speed’s unique view of the world of Oil painting in the 1920’s (it was originally printed in 1924); a time when impressionism was already mainstream and abstraction was coming into ascendance, but hadn’t yet completed its bizarre takeover of the fine art world. Therefore, you will find many random scraps wisdom about how one can marry the useful techniques of the impressionists and other non-traditional schools with traditional realism, before the polarization of styles occurred only years later.
Additionally, there is an all-too-brief section on the theories and techniques of several past masters. He even has a few paragraphs on the paint-application techniques of the Pre-Raphaelites, which is quite an eye-opener (before reading this, I hadn’t realized their technique was so unusual).
In short, it’s an essential technique book because of the content, and a great read because of the subtext. What more could you ask for?
Some closing thoughts
I don’t think the subject is entirely complete without couple of words of advice when looking for technique books.
The most important thing seems obvious, but since it took me several years to figure it out myself, I’ll pass it along anyway: you’ll get a lot more out of books about technique if you like the art in the book. Seriously – if you find a book about a subject you’re interested in, but you don’t like the art, odds are you’re not going to care for what the author has to say about this subject.
Keep technique books and refer back to them months or years after you read them. The best ones will tell you new things upon each rereading – either tidbits you missed the first time, or things that didn’t make sense before but now, with more experience, mean so much more. The best instructional books keep teaching for years.
Finally, don’t take every word in ANY book as law! There will be many conflicting ideas about color, composition, figure construction, even the fundamentals of aesthetics. Just remember, your job is always to synthesize the sum total of your knowledge and taste into something we call art. Reading a lot of conflicting ideas is a wonderful thing, because YOU will have the final choice, and that choice will be based on the widest possible range of ideas.
Then you can pull it all together into something that’s just uniquely you.
Article by Patrick McEvoy.
