A wonderful primer on free hand drawing that has stood the test of time. The lessons in this book are short and provide ample opportunity for practice on the pages facing the instructional text and illustrations. The book doesn't over-complicate the subject, making it accessible even to youngsters. If you are looking for an activity to share with a youngster to expand their creativity beyond the world of screens, this book fits the bill.

The Draw Anything Book is a tutorial guide to drawing a multitude of fun small objects. Due out 8th Sept 2020 from Quarto on their Quarry imprint, it's 176 pages and will be available in paperback format. These tutorials appear to be collected from the one page lessons by Robert Lambry and translated from the French 1920's-30's edition.

The book contains numerous deceptively simple tutorials which cover a huge number of drawing exercises listed in the table of contents grouped roughly thematically: lines, angles, curves & lines, developing an artist's eye to break down objects and render them on a piece of paper, symmetry, axes, proportions, masses, perspective, and many more. The bulk of the book is pages and pages and pages of very simple line drawings which -anyone- can do. There are numerous numbered step-by-step tutorials which also contain a facing practice page to try out the tutorials.

One of the most brilliant aspects of this book is in showing the would be doodler how to combine and build on simple elements to produce a deceptively simple cohesive piece of art which looks very complex. I've been using doodling as an awareness/mindfulness exercise and it really does work. These are cute and good fun.

This would make a really fun rainy day activity for younger kids to, well, adult age. They're appealing and whimsical. This would also be a great resource book for anyone wanting to up their drawing-with-young-kids game.

Four stars

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

The principles of drawing is evidently timeless – judging by the fact that the author created the contents of this book in the 1920s to 1930s!

Charming line drawings take up almost all the space with a smattering of text. I like that the right-hand side of every spread is left blank with prompts for you to practise the concepts that are introduced on the left-hand side.

Beginners will find much to help them to draw well - using shapes, angles, curves and symmetry. This is the first time I came across the concept of symbolism of lines and it is endlessly fascinating to me! I find that the information on proportions, perspective, gravity, masses and volume too brief to be fully understood. I would have appreciated more pages on those concepts.

Thank you Netgalley and Quarry Books for the ARC. This is my honest opinion.

A nice simple book for beginners with simple and easy drawings to start you off on your art journey, I would definitely say it’s for beginners as the pictures are simple and clear. I also would say at the end you can’t draw anything, it lacks decent instructions however (as I already sketch a bit if I didn’t I might be a bit lost) it’s a nice enough book but I feel it needs a bit more guidance and a little more colour to draw the eye in, but it’s a good start.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

This book is jam packed with guides to draw many things (although I wouldn't say I can draw "anything" after practicing along with the book!). It's an excellent resource for beginners and intermediate artists with a practice page after every lesson. However, I feel that the tagline "simple step-by-step sequences" is a bit misleading. The book was pretty lacking in instructions and guidelines as the topics started getting more and more complex, such as the sections on gravity, perspective, and symbolism. This book would be appropriate for people who are self-learners, people who like to figure things out for themselves just by looking at the drawings provided.

I will definitely be owning this book for the fun of drawing. As someone who cannot draw anything, especially a straight line, but have always wanted to, this book is fabulous. Detailed drawings and techniques to get you to drawing all kinds of things, along with a space on the same page for you to practice. If you can already draw, it might not be right for you unless you want to learn new techniques. I also love the vintage look of the pages. Explains techniques that many newbies to drawing would not know but need to know. Great book!