Best approach to studying art books
10:40 PM, Friday February 28th 2020
Hi my fellow artists I am a beginner artist and I just got some art books so I was wondering what way should I use or approach them to get the best out of the books?
Hi my fellow artists I am a beginner artist and I just got some art books so I was wondering what way should I use or approach them to get the best out of the books?
What kind of art books are they? General topics (like perspective, anatomy, etc...) or are they more like 'How to draw ____'?
Typically art books will present concepts and recommend exercises for you to practice to help better understand them. If it's a how to book, it will give you step by step tutorials paired with some info on the subject for you to consider if you want to get more creative with it. I personally recommend approaching those kinds of books with a decent amount of fundamental knowledge if you want to make the most of them, as they tend to focus more on the results instead of reasons. They can still be fun though:)
If you are anything like me (understands better by doing, rather than reading) then for every example picture in the book that demonstrates a concept try reproducing it yourself to understand how the concept is applied. Then for every page of the book you read (that has some valuable concept you need to understand) do around 10x pages of practice on your own (ie. not just copying the book but applying it).
Full disclaimer: I wrote this article. but I touch on that kind of stuff here
I'd be happy to answer any follow up questions to get more specific.
This is another one of those things that aren't sold through Amazon, so I don't get a commission on it - but it's just too good to leave out. PureRef is a fantastic piece of software that is both Windows and Mac compatible. It's used for collecting reference and compiling them into a moodboard. You can move them around freely, have them automatically arranged, zoom in/out and even scale/flip/rotate images as you please. If needed, you can also add little text notes.
When starting on a project, I'll often open it up and start dragging reference images off the internet onto the board. When I'm done, I'll save out a '.pur' file, which embeds all the images. They can get pretty big, but are way more convenient than hauling around folders full of separate images.
Did I mention you can get it for free? The developer allows you to pay whatever amount you want for it. They recommend $5, but they'll allow you to take it for nothing. Really though, with software this versatile and polished, you really should throw them a few bucks if you pick it up. It's more than worth it.
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