Complete Painting and Drawing Handbook by DK Publishing

The Complete Painting and Drawing Handbook is divided into four distinct sections: drawing, watercolour, acrylics, and oil painting. Originally published as four separate titles, this book is a comprehensive guide to these art mediums.

I love this book. It's presented in a workshop format that allows the reader/artist to work on pieces dealing with certain fundamentals, techniques and methods. It uses excellent and varied examples when explaining certain art subjects. The step by step instructions for many of the pieces are taken from the blank page to completion. There are a dozen of these in each section. If you follow along (as I hope to) and work through the entire book, you'll have almost 50 completed pieces in your portfolio in four different mediums.

The book is geared towards adults or at least older teenagers (+16) and features many different subject matters in the workshop pieces themselves, There are still-lifes, landscapes, portraits, animals, floral arrangements and many more. If you were just interested in landscapes, you could possibly just do those projects, providing you read through the others. The lessons are presented in a logical progression, so it's important not to miss one. I like drawing various subjects, so I think I'd probably do (or try to do) them all.

Because the book is a compilation of 4 separate books, some of the subjects, like composition, are covered more than once. However, the information is presented a little differently each time, so it really doesn't come across as repetitive. Besides, I think some of the information and guidelines are important enough to go over again and again.

I love that each section has a part on materials. There is so much out there in terms of art supplies, it's nice to know what to look for when starting out and visiting the store. I really like that the book presents the reader/artist with options. Other topics covered include: techniques, composition, creating textures and using colours as well as many other items specific to each of the mediums. Each of these is interesting as well.

The book contains a comprehensive table of contents, index and glossary for all four sections of the book. All of these should aid in finding various items in the book.

Highly recommended.

For more information about this book, please visit DK's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at DK Canada for this review copy.

Complete Painting and Drawing Handbook by DK Publishing, Dorling Kindersley Publishing, ©2009. ISBN 9780756656423(Hardcover), 480p.

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