What do you think?
Rate this book
Classic Human Anatomy in Motion: The Artist's Guide to the Dynamics of Figure Drawing
This essential companion book to the bestselling Classic Human Anatomy provides artists and art students with a deeper understanding of human anatomy and different types of motion, inspiring more realistic and energetic figurative art.
Fine-art instruction books do not usually focus on anatomy as it relates to movement, despite its great artistic significance. Written by a long-time expert on drawing and painting human anatomy, Classic Human Anatomy in Motion offers artists everything they need to realistically draw the human figure as it is affected by movement. Written in a friendly style, the book is illustrated with hundreds of life drawing studies (both quick poses and long studies), along with charts and diagrams showing the various anatomical and structural components.
This comprehensive manual features 5 distinct sections, each focusing on a different aspect of the human figure: bones and joint movement, muscle groups, surface form and soft tissue characteristics, structure, and movement. Each chapter builds an artistic understanding of how motion transforms the human figure and can create a sense of expressive vibrancy in one's art.
Fine-art instruction books do not usually focus on anatomy as it relates to movement, despite its great artistic significance. Written by a long-time expert on drawing and painting human anatomy, Classic Human Anatomy in Motion offers artists everything they need to realistically draw the human figure as it is affected by movement. Written in a friendly style, the book is illustrated with hundreds of life drawing studies (both quick poses and long studies), along with charts and diagrams showing the various anatomical and structural components.
This comprehensive manual features 5 distinct sections, each focusing on a different aspect of the human figure: bones and joint movement, muscle groups, surface form and soft tissue characteristics, structure, and movement. Each chapter builds an artistic understanding of how motion transforms the human figure and can create a sense of expressive vibrancy in one's art.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published August 4, 2015
116 people are currently reading
399 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 6, 2015
The TL;DR version: I think this is a beautiful, fundamental, essential book for anyone interested in figure study. In fact, I’ll be buying a copy myself. (If you don’t know me, I don’t buy books. This will be the fifth book with a price over $3 that I’ve bought so far this year.)
Given that this is an instructional art book, it's probably important to include my background. While I’ve always been interested in drawing, I’m not an artist and have no formal art training. I recently took a class in gesture drawing (mostly 30s - 60s poses) and while it was a lot of fun, and my first time ever working with a live model, I was somewhat disappointed that absolutely no anatomy was taught. When I found this book on Netgalley, I had been desultorily going through Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators and Figure Drawing: Design and Invention.
In my opinion, Winslow's book makes a wonderful companion to these books, and provides essential information that is not covered in either. As one might expect, Force focuses almost entirely on how to bring drawings to life. Hampton's book covers similar material to Winslow's, but their approach is very different. Hampton starts with basic gesture drawing and slowly builds upon these fundamentals, indicating at each step how the forms can be simplified. Winslow's book is far more linear: she starts with all bones in the body, then moves to joints, then to muscles, then to soft tissue, then to a more generalized discussion of gesture, movement, rhythm, and sequence. For simple reading, Hampton's ordering is preferable, but as a reference book, Winslow's ordering makes it very easy to find everything. If you do pick up this book, I strongly suggest tackling Chapter 9 (Structures and Planes of the Figure) and Chapter 10 (Gesture and Action Drawing) before going back and starting at Chapter 1--it will give you a much better sense of how everything fits together.
Since I can't find any example pages on the publisher or seller sites, I'm adding two (low-def) screenshots so you can get a sense of the book structure:
While Hampton spends much more time showing how to simplify the figure, Winslow's descriptions of the appearance, function, and deformation of the anatomical forms are far superior. Within the text, she provides the anatomical names and the purpose that the form serves. She often gives additional interesting information that makes the section both more entertaining and more memorable; for example, she notes that the sternum was once referred to as the gladiolus because of its resemblance to the knife the gladiators carried. Since this description was accompanied by a picture of the sternum and a gladiolus side by side, I have no difficulties remembering what the bone looks like. Unlike Hampton, she provides tons of pictures showing the deformation of various muscles and bones in action, often with drawings of a human superimposed. The drawings that accompany the book are absolutely breathtaking and staggeringly useful. Everything within the text is illustrated, from simplified pictures of the different types of joints to the planes of the head to the facial expressions caused by the movement of different facial muscle groups.
Overall, not only is this a beautiful book, but it's the type of essential reference work that you'll want to consult again and again. I'm definitely planning on purchasing it myself.
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Ten Speed Press, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!~~
Given that this is an instructional art book, it's probably important to include my background. While I’ve always been interested in drawing, I’m not an artist and have no formal art training. I recently took a class in gesture drawing (mostly 30s - 60s poses) and while it was a lot of fun, and my first time ever working with a live model, I was somewhat disappointed that absolutely no anatomy was taught. When I found this book on Netgalley, I had been desultorily going through Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators and Figure Drawing: Design and Invention.
In my opinion, Winslow's book makes a wonderful companion to these books, and provides essential information that is not covered in either. As one might expect, Force focuses almost entirely on how to bring drawings to life. Hampton's book covers similar material to Winslow's, but their approach is very different. Hampton starts with basic gesture drawing and slowly builds upon these fundamentals, indicating at each step how the forms can be simplified. Winslow's book is far more linear: she starts with all bones in the body, then moves to joints, then to muscles, then to soft tissue, then to a more generalized discussion of gesture, movement, rhythm, and sequence. For simple reading, Hampton's ordering is preferable, but as a reference book, Winslow's ordering makes it very easy to find everything. If you do pick up this book, I strongly suggest tackling Chapter 9 (Structures and Planes of the Figure) and Chapter 10 (Gesture and Action Drawing) before going back and starting at Chapter 1--it will give you a much better sense of how everything fits together.
Since I can't find any example pages on the publisher or seller sites, I'm adding two (low-def) screenshots so you can get a sense of the book structure:
While Hampton spends much more time showing how to simplify the figure, Winslow's descriptions of the appearance, function, and deformation of the anatomical forms are far superior. Within the text, she provides the anatomical names and the purpose that the form serves. She often gives additional interesting information that makes the section both more entertaining and more memorable; for example, she notes that the sternum was once referred to as the gladiolus because of its resemblance to the knife the gladiators carried. Since this description was accompanied by a picture of the sternum and a gladiolus side by side, I have no difficulties remembering what the bone looks like. Unlike Hampton, she provides tons of pictures showing the deformation of various muscles and bones in action, often with drawings of a human superimposed. The drawings that accompany the book are absolutely breathtaking and staggeringly useful. Everything within the text is illustrated, from simplified pictures of the different types of joints to the planes of the head to the facial expressions caused by the movement of different facial muscle groups.
Overall, not only is this a beautiful book, but it's the type of essential reference work that you'll want to consult again and again. I'm definitely planning on purchasing it myself.
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Ten Speed Press, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!~~
August 29, 2015
[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
This book took me more than a month to finish, not because it was boring, though: because there's so much to get out of it, and a couple of sittings just isn't enough. Incidentally, it is definitely worth having a paper copy, as a PDF is not the most convenient format to use it to its full extent.
The author goes methodically through anatomical fundamentals, along with plenty of illustrations to show how bones, muscle and sinews "translate" into once put on paper. While this can be read from front cover to back, I think it's not the best way to approach this book, and it will probably be much more interesting to start with a specific chapter, learn from it, and/or observe first the drawings and then read the anatomical "lessons" related to them. I had quite a lot of fun observing myself, trying to make a note on every detail (where a bone is apparent, etc.) and then compare with the written information ("so that's why there's this little justting parth ere: it's [bone X]").
Another interesting element is how some of the illustrations likens the body to objects (for instance, the condyles of the femur to a pair of casters): it provides another kind of reference, especially useful for people with a visual mind and who are more likely to learn from visual cues in general, as they can recall such references in order to draw those very parts later. Additional tidbits are provided, among which the reasons why this or that body part was named in such a way, something that in itself I always find good to know.
Last but not least, it one needs to understand processes to learn better, then this book goes exactly into that: if you understand how limbs are articulated, how muscles are tied to bones and then work together, how the vertebrae allow the spine to bend... then after a while, you can draw pretty much any position. And this, to me, is something I neglected for far to long, and wish I had realised sooner: to base one's drawings on realistic information and then only find one's style, instead of doing the contrary and learning from bases that aren't necessarily strong enough.
In other words, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn seriously about how to draw the human body and be able to draw it later without using (many) models and references.
This book took me more than a month to finish, not because it was boring, though: because there's so much to get out of it, and a couple of sittings just isn't enough. Incidentally, it is definitely worth having a paper copy, as a PDF is not the most convenient format to use it to its full extent.
The author goes methodically through anatomical fundamentals, along with plenty of illustrations to show how bones, muscle and sinews "translate" into once put on paper. While this can be read from front cover to back, I think it's not the best way to approach this book, and it will probably be much more interesting to start with a specific chapter, learn from it, and/or observe first the drawings and then read the anatomical "lessons" related to them. I had quite a lot of fun observing myself, trying to make a note on every detail (where a bone is apparent, etc.) and then compare with the written information ("so that's why there's this little justting parth ere: it's [bone X]").
Another interesting element is how some of the illustrations likens the body to objects (for instance, the condyles of the femur to a pair of casters): it provides another kind of reference, especially useful for people with a visual mind and who are more likely to learn from visual cues in general, as they can recall such references in order to draw those very parts later. Additional tidbits are provided, among which the reasons why this or that body part was named in such a way, something that in itself I always find good to know.
Last but not least, it one needs to understand processes to learn better, then this book goes exactly into that: if you understand how limbs are articulated, how muscles are tied to bones and then work together, how the vertebrae allow the spine to bend... then after a while, you can draw pretty much any position. And this, to me, is something I neglected for far to long, and wish I had realised sooner: to base one's drawings on realistic information and then only find one's style, instead of doing the contrary and learning from bases that aren't necessarily strong enough.
In other words, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn seriously about how to draw the human body and be able to draw it later without using (many) models and references.
July 27, 2015
"Classic Human Anatomy in Motion" is an anatomy book for artists who draw, paint, or sculpt human nudes. Much of the information can be applied to clothed figures, too, which is how I intend to use it. I appreciated that the nude figures were treated respectfully (rather than shown in sexually suggestive poses) and really were anatomically accurate.
This book contained many high-quality illustrations. Many of the illustrations showed the bones and muscles of the human body as you'd find them in an anatomy book. The author also pointed out which features can be seen on the surface and to look for them as reference points when drawing. She described the motions that each joint can do and how muscles work, so you can more realistically render the human body when it's in motion. To quote the book description, "each chapter builds an artistic understanding of how motion transforms the human figure."
Rather than having the reader repeat her drawings as exercises, the author described how to draw the figure you are interested in (from models, everyday life, pictures, or video). She suggested warm-up exercises and ways to suggest an active (rather than passive) figure. She gave some advice about working from your imagination, but she generally assumed that you'll have some reference to draw from as you work.
I'm familiar with human anatomy from my college days. I was impressed with the quality of this work, and it was a good refresher course for me. It has helped me understand how to apply that knowledge to my art. Overall, I'd recommend this book to artists who want to improve their depictions of human figures.
I received this book as an ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.
This book contained many high-quality illustrations. Many of the illustrations showed the bones and muscles of the human body as you'd find them in an anatomy book. The author also pointed out which features can be seen on the surface and to look for them as reference points when drawing. She described the motions that each joint can do and how muscles work, so you can more realistically render the human body when it's in motion. To quote the book description, "each chapter builds an artistic understanding of how motion transforms the human figure."
Rather than having the reader repeat her drawings as exercises, the author described how to draw the figure you are interested in (from models, everyday life, pictures, or video). She suggested warm-up exercises and ways to suggest an active (rather than passive) figure. She gave some advice about working from your imagination, but she generally assumed that you'll have some reference to draw from as you work.
I'm familiar with human anatomy from my college days. I was impressed with the quality of this work, and it was a good refresher course for me. It has helped me understand how to apply that knowledge to my art. Overall, I'd recommend this book to artists who want to improve their depictions of human figures.
I received this book as an ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.
June 14, 2016
As a studio art major initially focused on drawing and painting, human anatomy and figure drawing was an important component to my studies: In fact, I took a course focused on life drawing for an entire semester! Classic Human Anatomy in Motion is a wonderful resource for artists who want to learn more about human anatomy and the body in motion.
The obvious question is, how would you convey or depict the human body in motion from static images and words? Well, Valerie L. Winslow has created a book that I would describe as a resource rather than instructional or step-by-step art book. While there aren't projects to follow along with, Winslow gives an overview of different sections and areas of the body and describes how they move as parts and in conjunction with other body parts. Topics covered include bones, joints, muscles/tendons characteristics, facial muscles and expressions, muscles of specific parts of the body (e.g. neck, arms, legs, torso, etc.), body types and tissue.
The second part of the book covers eight methods of gesture (or action) drawing, how to capture movement, and an overview of body movements. It's almost like a textbook for a figure drawing course: What you read and learn about in this book, you can put into practice in live model drawing sessions or in your observations. Because human figures are so familiar to us --we see them every day-- sometimes it's easy to think that you know how to draw them. However, books like this encourage you to truly study and observe the human form. Things that I read about in this book will help me in my future work and practice.
It also is very approachable for artists and artists-to-be. As a practicing artist and instructor herself, while using the correct names/anatomical terminology of things such as muscles and bones, Winslow's text is accessible for non-medical students (such as artists or other laymen). While I know that artists often will borrow pure anatomy books written for the medical field for more depth, I felt this book was sufficient for my artistic needs. Drawings and detailed renderings are found on nearly every page to illustrate points from the text. A short bibliography of further reading and an index complete this book. I'd definitely recommend Classic Human Anatomy in Motion to anyone interested in drawing the human form, though high school students to adults would probably be able to make the most use of it.
[Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book through the Blogging for Books program for review purposes.]
This review first appeared at The Artist Librarian blog.
Content note: Just in case you couldn't tell from the cover, this book does contain drawings of human nudes for artistic research. =) If you are looking for human life drawing books with minimal renderings of nude figures, I suggest searching with the term "clothed figure."
The obvious question is, how would you convey or depict the human body in motion from static images and words? Well, Valerie L. Winslow has created a book that I would describe as a resource rather than instructional or step-by-step art book. While there aren't projects to follow along with, Winslow gives an overview of different sections and areas of the body and describes how they move as parts and in conjunction with other body parts. Topics covered include bones, joints, muscles/tendons characteristics, facial muscles and expressions, muscles of specific parts of the body (e.g. neck, arms, legs, torso, etc.), body types and tissue.
The second part of the book covers eight methods of gesture (or action) drawing, how to capture movement, and an overview of body movements. It's almost like a textbook for a figure drawing course: What you read and learn about in this book, you can put into practice in live model drawing sessions or in your observations. Because human figures are so familiar to us --we see them every day-- sometimes it's easy to think that you know how to draw them. However, books like this encourage you to truly study and observe the human form. Things that I read about in this book will help me in my future work and practice.
It also is very approachable for artists and artists-to-be. As a practicing artist and instructor herself, while using the correct names/anatomical terminology of things such as muscles and bones, Winslow's text is accessible for non-medical students (such as artists or other laymen). While I know that artists often will borrow pure anatomy books written for the medical field for more depth, I felt this book was sufficient for my artistic needs. Drawings and detailed renderings are found on nearly every page to illustrate points from the text. A short bibliography of further reading and an index complete this book. I'd definitely recommend Classic Human Anatomy in Motion to anyone interested in drawing the human form, though high school students to adults would probably be able to make the most use of it.
[Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book through the Blogging for Books program for review purposes.]
This review first appeared at The Artist Librarian blog.
Content note: Just in case you couldn't tell from the cover, this book does contain drawings of human nudes for artistic research. =) If you are looking for human life drawing books with minimal renderings of nude figures, I suggest searching with the term "clothed figure."
January 18, 2021
This book is a must-have resource for any aspiring artists! It was a thrill to draw its many great references on human anatomy. Essential companion book for anyone who wants to draw people!
Note! I too recomment new readers to first study Chapter 9 and 10 before starting from Chapter 1 and onwards.
Note! I too recomment new readers to first study Chapter 9 and 10 before starting from Chapter 1 and onwards.
August 31, 2019
This book is a great resource for any aspiring artist! It has a lot of great information for rendering the forms of the body and doing it in a dynamic manner. I would highly recommend this book for both beginners and advanced artists that are serious about learning anatomy.
February 22, 2021
In general, it is a good book. It won't take you by the hand. Yet the illustrations and examples are up my alley.
Good addition to your collection. It may be expensive to purchase.
Borrowed from the Local library.
Good addition to your collection. It may be expensive to purchase.
Borrowed from the Local library.
January 6, 2016
Valerie L. Winslow, fine award winning artist, Pixar Studios animation educator, as well as over thirty years teaching figurative art and artistic anatomy, published a profound 304 page hardcover illustrated volume, Classic Human Anatomy in Motion: The Artists Guide to the Dynamics of Figure Drawing.
This volume speaks to the creative and medical aspects of human anatomy. The book is sectioned, allowing the reader to digest the authentic mechanics of the human body. In each section and nearly all pages, there are distinct illustrations of the body part, ranging from bones to ligaments to muscle to tendons to skin to facial structures. Such elements are crucial to understand when creating a piece of art intended to be realistic and anatomically correct.
Browsing through the pages, the reader is able to stop wherever they please, not following a designed study pattern, more so, a creative one. One can start at the beginning or open any page and begin. This is only one important aspect of this book when speaking of creativity.
The chapters are easy to read, not scientific or medical in nature, and a student of anatomy as well as art will find this volume most useful. Valerie's understanding of the human body and all structures and movements involved is quite astounding.
The chapters are as follows:
Bones and Surface Landmarks
Joints and Joint Movement
Muscle and Tendon Characteristics
Facial Muscles and Expressions
Muscles of the Neck and Torso
Muscles of the Arm and Hand
Muscles of the Leg and Foot
Body Types, Soft Tissue Characteristics
Planes of the Body
Gesture and Action Drawing
Movement and Stationary Figures
Rhythmic Movement
Within each chapter, are sub-chapters that delve into each segment. For example, if one wishes to draw a perfect anatomical skull, it is here. If one wishes to draw the naked figure, any body type, it is here. If one wishes to create all facial structures, it is here and if one wishes to be able to create motion and realistic muscles beneath skin that is also in this artistically designed book from front to back covers.
As an artist and a student of medicine, this volume bewilders me. It is not only a book every artist needs to own, but a book ripe with extensive medical knowledge of the entire human body and all it encompasses. The illustrations range from a simple charcoal sketch of a woman standing to an extensive anatomical medical model of the same figure.
To test the practicality of this book, I began sketching with pencil and simply opened to a chapter on muscles. In less than 10 minutes, I already drew the upper body of a male figure outlined, half of it sketched, muscles showing, with basic curves of the body outlined in accurate depth and volume.
I have never done that in my life.
This is an artist’s dream. I cannot imagine being without this volume.
This volume speaks to the creative and medical aspects of human anatomy. The book is sectioned, allowing the reader to digest the authentic mechanics of the human body. In each section and nearly all pages, there are distinct illustrations of the body part, ranging from bones to ligaments to muscle to tendons to skin to facial structures. Such elements are crucial to understand when creating a piece of art intended to be realistic and anatomically correct.
Browsing through the pages, the reader is able to stop wherever they please, not following a designed study pattern, more so, a creative one. One can start at the beginning or open any page and begin. This is only one important aspect of this book when speaking of creativity.
The chapters are easy to read, not scientific or medical in nature, and a student of anatomy as well as art will find this volume most useful. Valerie's understanding of the human body and all structures and movements involved is quite astounding.
The chapters are as follows:
Bones and Surface Landmarks
Joints and Joint Movement
Muscle and Tendon Characteristics
Facial Muscles and Expressions
Muscles of the Neck and Torso
Muscles of the Arm and Hand
Muscles of the Leg and Foot
Body Types, Soft Tissue Characteristics
Planes of the Body
Gesture and Action Drawing
Movement and Stationary Figures
Rhythmic Movement
Within each chapter, are sub-chapters that delve into each segment. For example, if one wishes to draw a perfect anatomical skull, it is here. If one wishes to draw the naked figure, any body type, it is here. If one wishes to create all facial structures, it is here and if one wishes to be able to create motion and realistic muscles beneath skin that is also in this artistically designed book from front to back covers.
As an artist and a student of medicine, this volume bewilders me. It is not only a book every artist needs to own, but a book ripe with extensive medical knowledge of the entire human body and all it encompasses. The illustrations range from a simple charcoal sketch of a woman standing to an extensive anatomical medical model of the same figure.
To test the practicality of this book, I began sketching with pencil and simply opened to a chapter on muscles. In less than 10 minutes, I already drew the upper body of a male figure outlined, half of it sketched, muscles showing, with basic curves of the body outlined in accurate depth and volume.
I have never done that in my life.
This is an artist’s dream. I cannot imagine being without this volume.
December 15, 2015
There are lots of books on figure drawing with drawings women and men posed nude eating fruit or looking tired. Classic Human Anatomy in Motion: The Artist's Guide to the Dynamics of Figure Drawing is a comprehensive volume for artists, exploring how bodies move and how to draw them.
Classic anatomyValerie Winslow begins her exploration into drawing people with a look at bones, sinnews, joints and muscles. She illustrates how bodies bend and move, faces express, and how to depict continuous motion. One part scientific manual, one part Artist Technique book, Classic Human Anatomy in Motion is a great reference for Artists to hone their craft and to make their depictions of people more true-to-life.
The thirteen chapters each explore aspects of human bodies and how they move. Chapter One discusses the skeletal system (making watching Bones more enjoyable). Chapter two examines joints, chapter three, Muscles and tendons. Chapter four looks at facial expressions while chapters five, six and seven take a closer look at the muscles o the neck and torso, the arm and hand, and the leg and foot. Chapter eight explores various body types and chapter nine explores preliminary structures for figure drawing. Chapters ten through thirteen explore how to draw bodies in motion.
I am glad to have read this book and recommend it for any interested in improving their drawing of people, artists that need a refresher course, or as an at-hand-reference book for artists. Five stars: ★★★★★
Classic anatomyValerie Winslow begins her exploration into drawing people with a look at bones, sinnews, joints and muscles. She illustrates how bodies bend and move, faces express, and how to depict continuous motion. One part scientific manual, one part Artist Technique book, Classic Human Anatomy in Motion is a great reference for Artists to hone their craft and to make their depictions of people more true-to-life.
The thirteen chapters each explore aspects of human bodies and how they move. Chapter One discusses the skeletal system (making watching Bones more enjoyable). Chapter two examines joints, chapter three, Muscles and tendons. Chapter four looks at facial expressions while chapters five, six and seven take a closer look at the muscles o the neck and torso, the arm and hand, and the leg and foot. Chapter eight explores various body types and chapter nine explores preliminary structures for figure drawing. Chapters ten through thirteen explore how to draw bodies in motion.
I am glad to have read this book and recommend it for any interested in improving their drawing of people, artists that need a refresher course, or as an at-hand-reference book for artists. Five stars: ★★★★★
September 29, 2015
Okay, so first off a bit about my background I am currently a student at Southern New Hampshire University Online college; I am going for a bachelors degree in psychology, a minor in communications, and a certification in human resources management. Now nothing about that or me screams art, science, health, or biology and yet I found myself interested in this book because I was curious how an artist would learn to draw human beings as I have always been horrible at drawing people (who are not stick figures). I found myself blown away at the amount of detail in this book. The author not only shows how to draw muscles and bones in a realistic manner she also teaches the reader about all the parts. I honestly found myself overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information, totally information overload. This is a book truly meant only for professional artists; hobby artists and dabblers beware.
Full Review available at: http://misty103.hubpages.com/hub/Clas...
I was sent this book for free for only a honest and unbiased review.
Full Review available at: http://misty103.hubpages.com/hub/Clas...
I was sent this book for free for only a honest and unbiased review.
January 12, 2016
I'm always looking for new books to help improve my creative and artistic skills, so when this anatomy drawing book became available, I was really excited. My figure drawing is always slightly disproportionate, so I was hoping this book would help SHOW me how to correct that.
When I received the book, I quickly opened it and found lots of WORDS and not a lot of examples. As a visual learner trying to improve my art, I was baffled and confused by the lack of art in this book. Because of this, I set the book aside, hoping my next impression might be more favorable to actually reading through this 300+ page book.
Alas, my first impression stuck with me. The words may be very useful and helpful to some, but I can't imagine that too many artists would add this book to their collection. I don't think this book will be of much use to me, so I'll try to find someone that will get use out of it.
When I received the book, I quickly opened it and found lots of WORDS and not a lot of examples. As a visual learner trying to improve my art, I was baffled and confused by the lack of art in this book. Because of this, I set the book aside, hoping my next impression might be more favorable to actually reading through this 300+ page book.
Alas, my first impression stuck with me. The words may be very useful and helpful to some, but I can't imagine that too many artists would add this book to their collection. I don't think this book will be of much use to me, so I'll try to find someone that will get use out of it.
August 3, 2015
This art book actually reminds me more of the anatomy books you get when you study animation. It makes sense that you would study movement in classical poses since you can render a subject off balance and not realize it. This book helps you understand the structure behind the movement and poses your subject gives you. You can then translate a pose in a balanced way or once you gain understanding unbalance a subject in a purposeful way.
This book would also be of help to those that deal with any kind of structural endeavor. Those that want a greater understanding of movement would get a great overlook on how the muscles and bones process movement. While sometimes it can be a tedious amount of information, but it is useful as a reference guide. It would be a great addition to other figure drawing books. I give this book 3 1/2 stars.
This book would also be of help to those that deal with any kind of structural endeavor. Those that want a greater understanding of movement would get a great overlook on how the muscles and bones process movement. While sometimes it can be a tedious amount of information, but it is useful as a reference guide. It would be a great addition to other figure drawing books. I give this book 3 1/2 stars.
March 28, 2016
This interests me because of my background in exercise science, but I'm also curious to see how it relates to figure drawing in art (especially since my twin like artsy stuff). Looking forward to reading it.
June 11, 2016
Full of useful info.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews