Rating: 
Summary: Belongs on the shelf of any artist
Review: "Empowering" and "amazing" are words I've heard in reference to Jack Hamm and his books. The vast majority of "how to draw" books (sorry, but it is true) are self-indulgent galleries by people with poor skills. Jack doesn't show off. He tells you what he has tried, what usually works and what usually doesn't, and he gives you the confidence -- indeed, the urge -- to go out and try it yourself. And, oh -- his drawings are magnificent.
The layout of the book is unexpected. Sure, there is the expected list of trees and the panels of water reflections under different conditions. But the bulk of the book speaks to composition, particularly landscape composition, in ways that has made me recommend it to friends of mine doing Bryce and Terragen (computer landscape art).
As is typical of Jack's books, you read it once, then you pick it up again and again every time you need a little help, a confidence boost, or a kick in the pants.
Rating:
Summary: Belongs on the shelf of any artist
Review: "Empowering" and "amazing" are words I've heard in reference to Jack Hamm and his books. The vast majority of "how to draw" books (sorry, but it is true) are self-indulgent galleries by people with poor skills. Jack doesn't show off. He tells you what he has tried, what usually works and what usually doesn't, and he gives you the confidence -- indeed, the urge -- to go out and try it yourself. And, oh -- his drawings are magnificent.
The layout of the book is unexpected. Sure, there is the expected list of trees and the panels of water reflections under different conditions. But the bulk of the book speaks to composition, particularly landscape composition, in ways that has made me recommend it to friends of mine doing Bryce and Terragen (computer landscape art).
As is typical of Jack's books, you read it once, then you pick it up again and again every time you need a little help, a confidence boost, or a kick in the pants.
Rating:
Summary: You Won't Be Disappointed
Review: Are you fed up with the books that merely demonstrate how much better the author is at drawing than you are? All you can do is try (and fail) to copy their examples without really knowing the how and why of making marks and coming up with your own compositions?Jack Hamm tells you what marks to make, how to make them, where to make them, and why. And it turns out that it's easy to draw good pictures. Whodunnit in the end? Youdunnit!!! His landscapes book was the first I bought in the series. I was so impressed with it that I subsequently bought ALL his other books in a single batch. And I've been just as pleased with each of them.
Rating:
Summary: He does it for me...
Review: Are you fed up with the books that merely demonstrate how much better the author is at drawing than you are? All you can do is try (and fail) to copy their examples without really knowing the how and why of making marks and coming up with your own compositions? Jack Hamm tells you what marks to make, how to make them, where to make them, and why. And it turns out that it's easy to draw good pictures. Whodunnit in the end? Youdunnit!!! His landscapes book was the first I bought in the series. I was so impressed with it that I subsequently bought ALL his other books in a single batch. And I've been just as pleased with each of them.
Rating:
Summary: A refreshing approach to sketchings!
Review: Concise and clear, with a multitude of examples and direction. I consider this book as essential to sketching as my pencil and paper.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best subject-specific sketching text I've read.
Review: I bought this book after finishing Betty Edward's classic 'DOTRSOTB' along with a couple other subject-specific manuals and it has been a perfect set of texts. For trees and sky in graphite I haven't found anything better (yet). It is not, however, photorealistic rendering. Just very solid sketching techniques for landscape articles and some suprisingly good sections on composition. AN UPDATE ... I've recently picked up 'Drawing Nature' by S. Maltzman and find that it is quite a bit deeper but J. Hamm's book will always be lying around for reference. Now if I could just find a text explaining the actual techniques for creating the beautiful treelines I see in Maltzman's text. Maybe he kept that section 'spare' so I'd have to buy 'Drawing Trees Step-By-Step'?
Rating:
Summary: Buy this book, it's a steal!
Review: I bought this book to learn the principles of drawing scenery. My interest is in creating both comic book line pencil art and 2D computer game graphics (bitmap -Photoshop and vector - Flash). While the book�s description of the many tools and papers isn�t directly applicable, they gave me a few ideas on how the techniques could be translated into forms suitable for comics and 2D computer graphics. The book�s target audiences are fine arts students or �true� artists and some of the lessons presented and jargons used aren�t readily understood by hobbyists like me. However, this didn�t stop me from enjoying the book because of the specific content I was looking for: drawing trees, rocks, mountains, clouds, reflections, water correctly and many more. I was hoping the book would have a few pages dedicated to �cityscape� drawing but I am assuming that if you can draw nature, you can draw non-natural subjects like buildings. The book also didn�t have lessons on using colors but it did stress on perfecting black and white values/tones before jumping into colors. If you want colored scenery drawing, get another book. (But this is just me being my usual picky self.) Buy this book! It�s a steal! As in you�ll probably never need another drawing scenery book (unless of course you want to enhance your skill on a specific form such as oil, watercolor, acrylic, airbrush, etc.).
Rating:
Summary: Buy this book, it's a steal!
Review: I bought this book to learn the principles of drawing scenery. My interest is in creating both comic book line pencil art and 2D computer game graphics (bitmap -Photoshop and vector - Flash). While the book's description of the many tools and papers isn't directly applicable, they gave me a few ideas on how the techniques could be translated into forms suitable for comics and 2D computer graphics. The book's target audiences are fine arts students or 'true' artists and some of the lessons presented and jargons used aren't readily understood by hobbyists like me. However, this didn't stop me from enjoying the book because of the specific content I was looking for: drawing trees, rocks, mountains, clouds, reflections, water correctly and many more. I was hoping the book would have a few pages dedicated to 'cityscape' drawing but I am assuming that if you can draw nature, you can draw non-natural subjects like buildings. The book also didn't have lessons on using colors but it did stress on perfecting black and white values/tones before jumping into colors. If you want colored scenery drawing, get another book. (But this is just me being my usual picky self.) Buy this book! It's a steal! As in you'll probably never need another drawing scenery book (unless of course you want to enhance your skill on a specific form such as oil, watercolor, acrylic, airbrush, etc.).
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I couldn't agree more with Mari Lamar's comments. Absolutely a must have for any art student.
Rating:
Summary: Jack Hamm Is An Artist's Artist
Review: Jack Hamm's books fall into that category of being equally useful to the novice or the professional. He was an artist's artist, still instantly admired by anyone who picks up the pencil, and his simple approaches to the problems of draftsmanship, while infinitely helpful to us mortals, do nothing to hide the fact that he was a master of several forms. I'm particularly grateful that he covered this subject- landscapes, perspective, etc.- the bane of so many cartoonists and animators. As a basic reference this book offers something every time you open it, and deserves to remain in print and in use forever.
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