Member Reviews

While I truly enjoyed flipping through the well thought out pages, I didn’t feel smart enough or competent enough to begin my drawing journey with this book

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Step-by-Step Studio: Drawing Concepts by Ken Goldman; William F. Powell; Diane Cardaci; Carol Rosinski was a great book with lots of Step-by-Step Studio: Drawing with basics features and in-depth instruction on composition, value, creating textures, using and manipulating photo references, and more.
There is also step-by-step projects to recreate, from animal portraits and traditional still lifes to charming landscapes. which are very clear to follow..

However, I did find this book not really for beginners as it was too advanced within these drawings.

Thank-you the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this book.

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Very beneficial and educational reference book for drawing and learning about materials, techniques, and drawing concepts such as value, composition, perspective, shading and creating texture. The book not only includes step by step guides for drawing, but it also includes basic information like how to properly hold your pencil and different materials like brushes, erasers, paper, sharpeners, etc. It also gives you advice for setting up your work place. I recommend this book to every beginner artist or anyone looking to improve their technique.

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Awesome book! I am not an artist, but I have a young friend who is very talented. She loved the book and finds the book easy to use! I am definitely honored for her honesty and I love looking at the book with her and we both do a draw off and my poor picture is so sad!

Thanks for the tips and the illustrations!

I definitely would recommend this book to anyone looking for help with their art illustrations.

I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley and these are my willingly given thoughts and opinions.

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Learn and improve your sketching skills
"Step-by-Step Studio: Drawing Concepts. A complete guide to essential drawing techniques and fundamentals" by Ken Goldman, William F. Powell, Diane Cardaci and Carol Rosinski was published by Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster. This is the second publication of the book that was already published in 2009 as a spiral-bound version. After an introduction to the topic that contains "Tools & Materials", "Handling the Pencil", "Shading Techniques", and "Drawing What You See", the book is divided into four chapters: 1) Chapter 1: Understanding Values with subtopics such as "Basic Strokes", "Understanding Value & Shape", or "Combining the Elements of Design", 2) Chapter 2: "Dynamic Composition with topics such as "Choosing a Viewpoint", "Symmetry & Asymmetry", "Using Values", or "Arranging a Floral Composition", 3) Chapter 3: Realistic Textures with topics such as "Working with Different Techniques", "Botanical Textures", or "Landscape Textures", and 4) Chapter 4: Step-by-Step Exercises with various exercises such as "Teddy Bear", "Landscape", or "Portrait of a Girl."
The book offers extensive information, not only about sketching the various topics, but also about drawing and sketching in gerneral. The step-by-step instructions and multiple tips are really helpful to learn and improve skills. In spite of the fact that all the example in this book are done in black-and-white, the examples and tips can be also applied when artists want to use colored pencils or a similar medium. I highly recommend this book for beginners and advanced artists who want to work on their sketching skills.
The complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley free of charge. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
#StepByStepStudioDrawingConcepts #NetGalley

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Step-by-Step Studio: Drawing Concepts is an excellent book of fundamentals and basic techniques that would grace any artist's reference shelf. It covers a wide variety of techniques and tips including tools and materials, shading and textures, light, depth, and focus points. Lots of exercises are included to have a go yourself, all with clear instructions and steps. The pictures and illustrations are very clear and helpful, and the book would be especially useful for beginner to intermediate artists.

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Have you ever wanted to learn how to draw? Not stick figures but real life plants and animals? This book is for you. It goes step by step in the process of drawing real life plants and and animals. The book shows how to shade the pictures as well. This book is a beginners book for someone that would like to take an art class or be able to draw real life things.

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Four excellent artists share their know-how in art accumulated in many years ot practice. There is a chapter on value, one on composition, the third one on realistic textures, while the last chapter contains a few exercies of various sublects. It is worth to study well the concepts as they are very important to realistic drawing. Beginner friendly, is useful for the intermediate artist, too.

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Step-by-Step Studio: Drawing Concepts is is a tutorial and technique guide for drawing and rendering subjects aimed beginning to intermediate artists. Previously published in 2009, this reformat and re-release is due out 16th March 2021 from Quarry on their Walter Foster imprint. It's 144 pages and will be available in paperback format.

This volume has a similar format to the other familiar (and beloved) volumes in the series. The introduction covers tools, materials, some texture techniques, and some general drawing info (very basic). The following chapters contain the tutorials, arranged thematically: tonal studies and shading, composition, textures, and individual skill building exercises. Each of the tutorials contains step by step line drawing from basic outline to finished drawing. I felt some of the steps hopped over a lot of intermediate refinement, but all-in-all they're followable and clearly illustrated.

I could see this booklet, bundled with a good graphite drawing set making a superlative gift for a young artist up to adult age. The drawings are detailed enough to look quite professional, but not so extremely advanced that they would frustrate a keen beginner.

Four stars. I love that there are high quality tutorial books available from this classic art-publishing imprint and that reprints are readily available to a new generation of students.

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

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This is a great book for providing different drawing techniques. It has lots of different ways to draw things and gives the reason why doing it certain ways looks better.

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This book covers a wide variety of techniques from basic drawing skills to more complex work. Each subject is clearly explained with step-by-step illustrations. I consider this book to be a very useful addition to any aspiring artist’s library. I have improved my drawing skills considerably since reading it.

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So in depth with the different techniques, some I hadn't thought or heard of before. Can't wait to out this in practice

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Step-by-Step Studio: Drawing Concepts
A complete guide to essential drawing techniques and fundamentals
by Ken Goldman; William F. Powell; Diane Cardaci; Carol Rosinski
Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster

I love Walter Foster Books! This one is another great addition to the series! It starts with what tools and materials you will need, how to hold your pencil, and tips on shading and values. It then has the reader drawing values as shapes, then depicting form, establishing your light source, creating depth, and attracting the eye. All of this and more and each with a step by step short exercises all in the first chapter!

Chapter two has more short exercises to build a dynamic composition then chapter three you put it all together for the realistic texture step by step exercises. ( Fur, feather, hair, leaves, glass, etc)
Chapter four has the combined skills of all the above in six more step by step exercises.
There is one or more photo with each instruction. The instructions are clear and easy to follow. This book is good for beginners or those needing just a little help.
I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this book.

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Learning to draw is of great interest to me. I've checked out other books from the library and also bought some, trying to develop my skills. This book looks like it has lots of useful content, and I hesitate when I consider an appropriate score for it because of the apparent content quality. The problem is, much of the content is too hard to navigate. At first, I thought maybe it was a quirk of my e-reader, but I have had other drawing books in it and made good use of them. And I just jumped into other books to make sure things are loading right. They are.

No, I think there's something about how this e-book has been set up that just makes it difficult to access and utilize. It opens in two-page-at-a-time mode, and trying to zoom in enough to make the material useful is cumbersome and difficult. Overall, it was very frustrating. The content, from what I can see, appears to be excellent, but the formatting ruins the experience. So I'll give the content 5 stars, the formatting 1 star, so overall 3 stars. I hope the publisher does a better job with the released version. Perhaps I'll pick up a copy then.

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Like all books by this publisher, this is a good instructional guide. That said, all the books by this publisher tend to feel very similar. The chapters are written by four artists (one per chapter) and two of them are deceased. I'm fairly sure the publisher just regularly commissions modern artist authors to contribute parts and then continually recycles materials from the many decades they've been publishing these books (in some cases they just republish entire works, which is why their portrait books tend to have people that look so old fashioned). That's good in a way -- why reinvent the wheel, when they had artist authors who were so talented? But it also results in books that sometimes feel like the same book with a bit of new content. This is a great guide to pencil drawing, but if you already have some others by the publisher you might want to preview it to see if it provides you with enough new direction to be worth a purchase.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

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So many techniques of making drawing fun.. the upside down technique.. to make your brain look a things diferently. The value system. Using blanks as edges of thign slines. you will get so much more skilled practising what this book shows.

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**I received and voluntarily read an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

I am horrible at drawing/sketching, so I always jump at the chance to read art books like this one. Not only does this book teach you how to draw several different animals, it also teaches a lot of information about sketching and drawing in general.

Overall, definitely a book I would add to my collection.

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