Book Review

A few years ago, I think it was when I was working on a book about elephants, I realized that I actually didn’t really know how to draw animals. Sure, I can copy from photos, but I didn’ t understand the underlying anatomy of what I was drawing. Imagine my surprise when I found out … Read More

James Jean is an illustrator, most famous for his work on Fables. Since I rarely read American comics, I actually learned about him through one of my teachers at SVA, Stephen Gaffney, who teaches figure drawing. Interestingly, James Jean’s figure drawings do remind me of Stephen Gaffney’s figure drawings, but I digress… This book (248 … Read More

This is a big book, 128 pages full of sketches from this relatively obscure but talented artist. Heinrich Kley was a mostly a commercial artist, which explains why he’s not as well-known as Van Gogh (for example). The drawings in this book are mostly political cartoons he drew for a German newspaper. All of the … Read More

Although I don’t really do portraiture or work in charcoal, the artwork in this book is amazing. There are artists who are good, and then there are artists who are really good. John Singer Sargent is definitely an artist above all others. Looking at all his portraits, you get an idea of the character the … Read More

Another cool book from Dover! This is a collection of sketches/ drawings by Egon Schiele. Schiele is a comtemporary of the artist Klimt, and they were both part of the Vienna Secessionist movement. The Vienna Secessionist movement is, superficially, very similar to art nouveau, but uses a bit less embellishments. Klimt is known for paintings … Read More