Rating: 
Summary: Akin to "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"
Review: Having learned to draw from Betty Edwards' "right brain" approach, this book is a natural follow-on. It teaches a painterly approach to drawing by capturing the masses, rather than the contours, in much the same way as DRSB does. I've struggled with contour drawing from the beginning, whereas I see the masses and tones very easily. The drawings in this book are beautiful, and it's great confirmation and affirmation of the DRSB training I've had. See my other review for DRSB.
Rating:
Summary: Good "how to book" on realistic charcoal figure drawing.
Review: I liked this book. It is well laid out and easy to follow his steps. The author make a very difficult task look easy. (It is not easy, trust me) Charcoal is my medium of choice and there are so few books on this specific subject. I wish this book showed more expressive approaches. A free more abstract approach with the figure playing hide & seek is more to my liking. I especially liked the price
Rating:
Summary: THE TWO WAYS
Review: I own a copy of Douglas Graves book and several others of his and treasure them along with Vandepool's book and George Bridgman's. In Doug's book, there is a consistent and exhaustively comprehensive approach. I would recommend it without reserve for anyone wishing to become a painter or an illustrator-I would also recommend several years of figure and anatomy study at a good art school. I consult all three books and many others in my own painting and illustrating, and teaching regularly. I knew Doug when he was at the American Academy and at Leo Burnett. He was/is a gentleman, a fine artist/illustrator, and author. His method is that of the artist/Teachers, Mosby, and Van and theirs is one way to approach figure drawing-and a good way for many people and especially good training for painting in oil. I was at the American Academy for nearly four years before going on to finish my BA and obtain Masters Degrees elsewhere. In 2 1/2 of those 3 1/2 years and I took life drawing and anatomy 3 hours a day, five days a week. The last year I took the life drawing both AM and PM, 6 hours a day, five days a week. I had Mosby, Van-... and I also studied another method-that of Michelangelo as taught by another teacher at the academy whose own professor was taught in a direct line from Ghirlandiao, Michelangelo's teacher-that teacher was Salvatore Salla. He advocated line drawing, and his method is especially helpful for those who do watercolor figures. I do both and while at school my work was honored in the front hall exhibit space at the Academy, weekly in tone charcoal drawing, line drawing and water color sketches. There is no finer book for those who like Doug's approach, and I love both his methods and Salla's. You will not regret buying and using Douglas Graves book, and I would buy Bridgman and Vanderpool along with it and then get thee to an art school if you want to make a living at painting and drawing.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but.....
Review: I really liked the book as others share in their review. But, I guess I really need some basics in regards to a break down. This book covers how to just get in and do the whole body, slowly laryering with charcoal. I like working in the charcoal, it is fast and easy to work with in regards to fixing mistakes. Once charcoal is in place, other mediums can be used over it if you are wanting to make your drawing into a painting. It is a good book though. The fours stars is only because I was expecting some breakdown of the figures.
Rating:
Summary: Good but.....
Review: I really liked the book as others share in their review. But, I guess I really need some basics in regards to a break down. This book covers how to just get in and do the whole body, slowly laryering with charcoal. I like working in the charcoal, it is fast and easy to work with in regards to fixing mistakes. Once charcoal is in place, other mediums can be used over it if you are wanting to make your drawing into a painting. It is a good book though. The fours stars is only because I was expecting some breakdown of the figures.
Rating:
Summary: Bringing Charcoal to Life
Review: I recently reviewed a book on life drawing where the author used a painstaking process to make gorgeous pencil drawings. He focussed on building up tone through meticulous hatching and shading. (And outlining and measuring - very obsessive but rewarding.)This book also focuses on tone rather than line, this time in charcoal and without the rather anal measuring and outlining. In fact it is far more accessible to the average life student, because the methods Graves uses can likewise be used in a life class. You don't need days and days of posing. Nor do you need the foundation drawing skills required by the other book. This is a book which can be put to immediate use. And very valuable it is, too. Expect an improvement in your results the first time you put the lessons taught by Graves to use. You will find yourself looking at your model as a collection of tonal areas, rather than lines, and consequently your drawings will have more shape to them. They will be brought to life. The essence of Graves' method is to work with two tools - charcoal and a chamois. Tones are built up with the charcoal, and the chamois is used to lighten them. One early exercise uses a "wash" of charcoal to create a background and then shapes are picked out with the chamois to make the drawing. Darker values such as shadows are added with more charcoal. The book starts with the basics. Tools, media and techniques. All illustrated and described, along with exercises illustrated for the student. Chapters are presented as exercises, each focused on a different topic. Lines and shadows, proportions, alignments, composition and so on, each building on the last. Step by step the final image is built up from broad tonal masses to detailed shapes. Construction lines are shown and at each step Graves tells us precisely what he is doing and why. I particularly liked the illustrated explanation of the difference between lines and outlines. The body has lines, such as the creases formed when folding the elbow, and outlines, being the imaginary line where the body finishes and the background begins. Drawing body lines reflects reality, but drawing outlines imposes something that isn't there - we don't see bodies surrounded by lines - if the background and the body are the same colour they blend into each other, they don't form a line. Graves uses negative shapes to help define the outline, a much more natural and satisfactory method. Graves shows and tells in a pleasant, consistent manner how to improve our techniques. There is something here for all levels, but this book is perhaps best used by an intermediate artist rather than a beginner or an expert. A few basic skills help to get right into it, and if you are already achieving good results you may not feel happy about changing your ways. Having said that, Graves provides plenty of flexibility and new ideas to add to an existing skill base. This book *will* help you improve your style. Highly recommended to anybody with an interest in drawing the nude. Especially valuable to students attending life class for the first time.
Rating:
Summary: A 5.5-star sweet love affair; and I am glad I am involved!
Review: I suddenly feel like beating around the bush a little here. So please bear with me. Picture this: You graduated from high school, went to college, left your high school's sweetheart behind, found a new girl, then another one, then yet another... (I could go on and on), graduated from college, got a job, and (with any luck) married one of the girls you dated in college. Twenty years had gone by, you suddenly found yourself at the high school reunion party. A glance at your old-time highschool sweetheart all of sudden brought back a world of love and hope. Whew! What gives?! You suddenly found how attractive and desirable your highschool sweetheart was! (And if fate played tricks on you, beside her was a 300-pound hairy-chested, bald-headed husband of hers...) So what does all that have anything to do with this book, you ask? Well, it has EVERYTHING to do with this book. As you WILL agree with me, to become an artist in any "respectable" medium (oil, watercolor, pastel, and the likes), one has to start with drawing. The most highly-disciplined practice is figure drawing. Usually, one would start with drawing the likeness, USING LINES. Then comes positive, negative spaces, mass, tone, then colors, etc. In this book, however, the author presents an approach of drawing figures using charcoal as medium and using mass (rather than LINES) to achieve the effects. The book is well-written and very readable. I finished the book from cover to cover at one sitting of several hours. To keep it brief and helpful, the following are what covered in the book:
1) Materials
2) Values, tonal masses
3) Figure proportions; male and female distinctions
4) Foreshortening
5) Movement and muscles
6) Different modes of charcoal rendering In my opinion, painters at intermediate and advanced levels may enjoy the book more than beginners. The reason is mainly because "traditional" training usually have beginners learn to achieve likeness using lines (which, by the way, is already hard for a majority of beginners). In this case, the author presents seeing masses, tones, and values as a way to achieve likeness and gesture. Needless to say, this approach is rather familiar to folks who have done some painting in oil. Now back to my "love affair": as an oil painter myself, I rarely use charcoal for "serious" work. It is a nice medium to achieve shadow, light, and dark. However, I think (and so do you), work in other mediums (oil, acrylics, watercolor, pastel, etc.) shows the maturity of the artist. After all, the boy has become "the man", college graduated, married and all. But you could be dead wrong after reading this book. Figure drawing using charcoal presented by the author is one of the reasons that I love figure drawing (although I may use different approaches - including using lines, masses, or both). The beauty and nobleness of the female figures are breathtakingly rendered in this book. It is a 5.5-star sweet love affair; and I am glad I am involved in it. Need I say more? Now you know why looking at your old-time highschool's sweetheart at the highschool reunion party just makes you want to be a boy of teenage age again.
Rating:
Summary: The Tonal Approach
Review: Mr. Graves was one of my art school instructors and a friend for thirty years (he recently passed away), and this book first came out way back in 1969 or 1970 while I was still in his class. Naturally, I recommend this book highly because I learned his approach first hand and know it to be excellent. I distinctly remember him working on the head of one of my figure drawings in class and I was blown away with the beautiful results he produced. I feel lucky to have studied with him, to have known him as a friend and to have studied this book.
The approach is one of "tone," instead of "line," i.e., working on charcoal paper with a middle tone dusting of charoal all over the paper, the lights are removed with a chamois and darker values are added using vine charcoal. The modeling of form proceeds from there, perhaps using additional tools: kneaded erasers, paper stomps, bristle brushes, sponge puffs, etc., depending upon what effects you are after.
We used to work and rework these drawings from life for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, under Mr. Graves' supervision and helpful guidance.
You cannot go wrong with this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Tonal Approach
Review: Mr. Graves was one of my art school instructors and a friend for thirty years (he recently passed away), and this book first came out way back in 1969 or 1970 while I was still in his class. Naturally, I recommend this book highly because I learned his approach first hand and know it to be excellent. I distinctly remember him working on the head of one of my figure drawings in class and I was blown away with the beautiful results he produced. I feel lucky to have studied with him, to have known him as a friend and to have studied this book.
The approach is one of "tone," instead of "line," i.e., working on charcoal paper with a middle tone dusting of charoal all over the paper, the lights are removed with a chamois and darker values are added using vine charcoal. The modeling of form proceeds from there, perhaps using additional tools: kneaded erasers, paper stomps, bristle brushes, sponge puffs, etc., depending upon what effects you are after.
We used to work and rework these drawings from life for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, under Mr. Graves' supervision and helpful guidance.
You cannot go wrong with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable Drawing Instruction for Every Level Student
Review: Working the whole page all at once is key, by keeping in mind masses and tonal value. This technique is like painting 'alla prima' while working from larger masses to smaller details, because it creates while it plans. This is the best way to learn, beginning with how to place the figure properly on the page, saving time from redoing large parts because of an improper start.
The step by step approach with over 200 illustrations makes it easy to follow along. Not only is this the most efficient approach, it's the most exciting, achieving immediate progress with the greatest chance for accuracy.
The traditional practice of teaching the beginner to draw, using lines, only encourages bad habits which single them out as an amateur, while providing no special advantage over the approach in this book.
I recommend this book for all levels. For the beginner it is essential to first learn these principals of working with masses instead of lines, so telltale of the amateur. For the more advanced artist, there are many techniques useful to refining their skill.
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