Product Description

Now beginning artists can get all the drawing help they need in one convenient place.

Bestselling author Lee Hammond is known for her clear, basic methods for drawing nearly any subject. This giant book brings together the best projects from her other titles into one super-sized guide. Readers will find: - Popular subjects like people, animals, flowers and nature - An encouraging "You Can Do It" section - Clear step-by-step instructions to guarantee success - Chapters on choosing materials and mastering basic techniques

This entire book showcases realistic, appealing artwork that's truly achievable. Anyone can find creative success with Lee Hammond leading the way!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118533 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

About the Author
Lee Hammond's popular drawing books--more than a dozen in all--have helped thousands of artists achieve their creative dreams. She's been a professional artist for more than 23 years and is now an officially licensed artist for NASCAR. Lee lives in Overland Park, Kansas.

Customer Reviews

Pencil man
This is an excellent text for the beginning drawing student, and for those who need help with the correct proportions for the human face. I recommend it highly, and will use it when I prepare for woodcarving greenmen.

Lee Hammonds Big Book of Drawing
An excellent book to perfect drawing techniques. Uses grid method to learn to sketch difficult human features. Includes many of the same learning sequences using colored pencil. A good book to stimulate art students into trying to draw more difficult subjects, especially people and animals.

Look Elsewhere
To help you understand my background and justification for criticizing an otherwise well received book, I am an accomplished portrait artist and teacher with more than 25 years of experience. Throughout the years, many workshop students have shown me books they've purchased in order to learn to draw realistically. There are absolutely techniques to drawing and it is a skill that virtually anyone with the time and patience can learn to do at least passably well. I am not an elitist that believes only those who are 'gifted' can learn to draw. There most definitely are good books that can help the beginning student learn these techniques so I have nothing inherently against them. I have used books on occasion to learn specific techniques and found them to be quite beneficial. The problem I have is with this author (all of her books suffer from the same defect) as her "art" is utterly soulless. Her drawings have as much feeling to them as a 1940's Sears & Roebuck catalog's fashion drawings. To an untrained eye, her drawings look spot on, as technically they might be but they are not art, just as an architectural rendering of a future building is spot-on, and it's also not art. You will do much better with Betty Edwards, who has a multitude of books just for the beginner with a far better result. If you are looking for more advanced techniques, Juliette Aristides' "Classical Drawing Atelier" and "Classical Painting Atelier" are wonderful. Granted, the idea of an atelier in a book is absurd and many true pre-20th century techniques have been lost, but these books will certainly teach you how to draw in a much more believable, and artistic, way. Another great alternative is to get books which show the drawings of masters you admire and study them. Better still, if you can, go to a museum and see them (and then study them!) I have no vested interest in recommending these other books or options but I have seen what works and every time I see a bright-eyed student with a Lee Hammond book I cringe because they could do so much better.