This is a 40 page, step-by-step drawing book for beginners, “A Beginner’s Guide to Realistic Textures in Graphite.”

Contents are broken down into categories: Tools & Materials; Graphite Techniques; Understanding Value; Texture, Light & Form; Botanicals; Still Life; Wildlife; Landscape; Cityscape; Portrait; and Pets.
Each Category is “defined” by approximately two sentences, and so on, as things are broken down by item.

Tools & Techniques is broken down into categories of Pencils, Paper, Blending Tools and Eraser. Those four categories are broken down further. Pencils, for instance, has five different types of drawing pencils listed.

I was reminded recently that with the changing colour and the falling of the leaves that we are not far away from Hanukah and Christmas. Ideal for a beginning, these looked like they would be perfect for some budding artists I know.


Published: 04 SEP 2018

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster, Walter Foster Publishing

I think this book is really useful, as most art books dont explain how to draw textures too much. That's why I am happy I found this book and with its help I am hopfully going to improve my skills. It's good that there are pages about all the things you should have with some recommendations. I also liked the explanations given for each step even though some things are definitely not easy at first but this is not a book for absolute drawing beginners anyways. Still. everybody can draw the things explained in the book with some practise.

This short book covers basic drawing techniques and is a good jumping off point for someone wanting to get started drawing and improving basic skills.

Thank you to Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. All comments are my own, unbiased opinion.

This is a short book which covers all the basic techniques for drawing and shading with a pencil. However it doesn’t cover a few questions I would like answered. How best to sharpen a pencil? How to hold it in you hand for making different marks? Examples of the difference paper makes to pencil marks and shading. How to keep your work clean as you draw? That said I would recommend it to any beginner.