Drawing Still Life Book Review

 Drawing still life as explained in this book is a valuable artistic process that teaches you how to observe and draw what you see, with 9 core chapters that take you on a drawing discovery through the many processes of drawing varying still life subjects, the front covers tag line says that this is "A Practical And Inspirational Course" and it is, the artist has a visual style that is quite like an illustrator and the way the art content is presented is like it is being taught to you in a formal way with the first chapter going through the first steps of starting to draw still life subjects.

The book seems to go in great detail about spacial awareness which is great as this is highly important in drawing around you at anytime and also surface textures which is touched upon within the book too.

What makes this a good book, is that it gives you ideas to draw and doesn't limit you to draw just fruit or something that every artist must do, it simply has a common theme throughout the book that says "draw anything as it is something to draw" and it learns you, the very fact that you begin to draw composite subjects that you could arrange yourself or they are already there makes for a good learning experience.

Later on in the book, you are encouraged to try out advanced drawing of still life compositions from different viewpoints which is also of use and it gives you some excellent angles and viewpoints that you could consider for your drawings and also explores where you the artist draws from to get the right viewpoint, I've never been so entertained by a book so much it reminds me of when I was at art college and I was thrilled at one of the over enthusiastic art teachers as he just made everyone want to draw still life stuff, even though it could have appeared to be boring to draw mouldy old vegetables and empty wine bottles, it was a useful exercise.

The overall ease the book provides to follow the course content is apparent as the author is a teacher and freelance artist too which makes sense to convey this course content from an expert who has been there and gone through many drawings of still life observations and past art experience.

I recommend this book for the simple value it creates for the artist and to perfect an artists observing art skills.