Art & Design, book review, Non-Fiction

Life Drawing For Artists – REVIEW

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Litercurious Book Review

TitleLife Drawing for Artists: Understanding
Figure Drawing Through Poses, Postures,
and Lighting
AuthorChris Legaspi
PublisherRockport Publishers (December 24, 2019)
FormatPaperback, Kindle
Pages176
Language: English
ISBN-10/ISBN-131631598015 / 978-1631598012

AUTHOR

Christopher Legaspi has taught at some of the top art schools in America, including the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood and the New Masters Academy.

His design and drawing classes are some of the most popular and exciting classes offered. Along with his classroom experience, he’s held workshops and lectured at the world-renowned Art Center College of Design, the Concept Design Academy, and LucasArts in Singapore.

If you would like to find out more, you can read all about the author on his own blog page by clicking here. You can find his portfolio here. He has a blog that you can visit here.

WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE

Artists who are committed to improving their life study skills, and students who are still finding their favorite subjects to draw will find this book essential. In addition, any amateur artist who wants to see improvements in their work through study may benefit from the years of knowledge and experience contained within the 176 pages of this magnificent book.

SYONOPIS

In Life Drawing for Artists, Legaspi informs us of his technical approach to life drawing. As any professional artist will know, life drawing is best done with an actual artist’s model in good lighting. The costs of employing a live model can be prohibitive and this is where books like Legaspi’s come in to their own.

The author starts where all art creation begins, with the materials and tools. Chris goes on to discuss how important quick sketches are to capturing the moment. Quick sketching is a conventional method used in every place where art is taught. The brevity of producing drawings in limited time forces the artist to make hard decisions quickly. This method forces the artist to identify the lines, shapes and forms of the body often without allowing the pencil to leave the page for the greatest speed.

In later passages Legaspi refers to the various elements that make up the body arms, legs, head and torso. Most important for those learning life drawing is how to assess the proportions of the body correctly. Learning the anatomical proportions is central to the improvement in any artist’s work. He further explains poses and positions that are more esthetically pleasing to the eye. The perspective of the body and how to achieve the correct depiction I believe will remain a favorite of many readers.

The reader is left in no doubt that Chris Legaspi is a practiced and professional lecturer in art and design. His experience is palpable as you traverse the pages and are confronted with page after page of pure artists gold.

CONCLUSION

Life Drawing for Artists is in every way a university level course. The author takes the student on a journey similar to a class in academia. You get to choose how quickly you move forward. You have time to consider, assess, and control your own learning rate. The pages are replete with helpful and useful information from an expert with many years of experience in the industry.

In this text you will find many techniques to aid in improving your skills and take them to the next level. Among these techniques are: Increased knowledge of the human body and its structures, methods to develop exciting poses, a focus on drawing methods and how to enhance them, and how to use basic forms and shapes to aid in sketching methods.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My sincere thanks go to Chris Legaspi, NetGalley, and Rockport Publishers, for affording me the opportunity to review Life Drawing for Artists: Understanding Figure Drawing Through Poses, Postures, and Lighting.