A comprehensive guide to human anatomy and how to use it to inform your art. This book covers a good range of anatomical language then moves through the body explaining how to use anatomy to improve your art. As well as anatomy, ideas are also given on how to show different textures, e.g. of varying types of skin and hair. It's great to see a wide variety of models used, including wheelchair users, those who have had a mastectomy and those with strabismus.
I'd recommend this to beginner life artists. I've never been able to draw people, but this book makes it seem much more accessible.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read and review this book. Anatomy for the Artist is a illustrated guide book to drawing the human body. I am new to drawing human bodies, so this step-by-step guide was great. Some of the sections in this book: shape and form, the skeletal form, pose, posture and expression, facial features and expressions, and more.

If you like drawing and want to learn more you should pick this up.

Anatomy for the Artist is an instructional guide that covers line width and quality, shading, anatomical elements, bones, body systems, and light sources. Great for an artist who wants to improve their skills drawing people.

I wanted to read this book because I am an aspiring artist. I did not take art in HIgh School or College. Therefore my drawing skills are very lacking. My passion is painting and I realize that improving my drawing skills will improve my paintings.
I have read a lot of books on drawing and anatomy. I found this one to be one of the best I have read. I used the illustrations as practice exercises.
I would highly recommend this to any artist, beginner or advanced. It makes an excellent reference.
I received this galley from NetGalley.

A detailed, thorough and easy to follow guide to drawing the human body. Twenty four clearly explained and beautifully illustrated chapters take you through every aspect of drawing the whole, or parts of, the body. Great for a beginner and also more skilled artists. Thank you to Jennifer Crouch, Net Galley and Arcturus for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the book the artist is admittedly more interested in abstract art but the approach suited my style and skill level. Great for beginners and thise wanting to focus on form.

I have read very few instructional art (drawing) books, so I don't know how this compares to what else is out there. However, I found it very beginner-friendly, and I imagine it would be very helpful for experienced artists wanting to explore/get better at life drawing. The anatomy portion is a thorough examination of skeletal, muscular, and fat systems. Crouch also spends quite a lot of time on weight distribution and movement direction for gestural poses. She clearly shows how to use construction lines to develop proportion and describes the layer by layer process of building from nothing to a fully formed portrait.

This book is extremely inclusive, featuring models of many body types and gender expressions. There are people of color, people with disabilities, people who use wheelchairs, and so on. Crouch celebrates human variety and how the human body changes constantly from birth to old age -- it is always beautiful and she never judges. The focus is on finding the model's bones and muscles and presenting them on the page.

She does focus on observational portraiture, aka realism, but admits her own artwork is typically more abstract. In essence, this book is about teaching a foundation in observational drawing so you can break those rules in interesting ways after you've got a grounding in the basics. She does specifically mention animation several times, as conveying the way bodies move is entirely necessary to the field.

I learned a lot, especially about what so many comic book artists fail to portray. Crouch doesn't call out comic art; it's only that I'm really familiar with it and how bad anatomy and physiology is epidemic to the genre. I would absolutely recommend this book to comic artists, as well as anyone wanting to learn to sketch people but who don't have the resources (due to lockdown or otherwise) to take a life drawing course.


ARC

Where was Jennifer Crouch when I was knee deep in the trenches of human anatomy when I was at university?

With clean minimalist style drawings and comprehensive coverage of human anatomy, Anatomy for the Artist is ideal for those looking to improve both their knowledge of human anatomy and their drawing skills in the process.

Special shout out to Netgalley and Arcturus publishing for this eARC.

Thank you NetGalley for providing eARC for review purposes.
This is an instructional book especially suitable for a beginners in life drawings. If you have attended a life drawing (drawing from a live model, typically nude to study human figures) and had difficulties rendering likeness, this book can give some detailed pointers which may not be available from your instructor going around the classroom. It breaks down essence in drawings including materials to be used, different techniques, perspectives, etc, to get you started. It also explains different terms used for anatomy. I especially enjoyed the muscular and skeltal drawings which are detailed and informative.

Personally I am an artist who enjoy figurative drawings and has owned similar (and better in my opinion) books in the past. The author's artworks in general didn't appeal to me personally, which has lessened my enjoyment - however, this is just personal taste and the book is meant to be instructional rather than entertaining. I feel the book hits it marks for what is intended to be as an instruction manual.

This was okay. It's definitely more geared towards beginners, in my opinion, but it's a pretty complete guide. Nothing too special. If you have experience with drawing this won't really add anything to your life. I guess I was expecting a bit more when I picked this up. At least more drawing and examples would have been nice. It was a bit dry.

5+ Stars for this anatomy and figure drawing book! I WILL be buying my own hard copy of this to keep.

Jennifer Crouch has completed one of the very best and easiest to understand anatomy drawing books available.

The tastefully done anatomy drawings, descriptive body parts, bones and muscles, as well as incredible expertise and drawing of every bone, muscle and anatomical part of the body is beyond what anyone could imagine for a drawing book.

For medical and recreational purposes, this book is a fantastic resource and learning guide. I am blown away by the thought in detail put into this 300 page book. For anyone looking to improve their ability to draw the human form in any format, THIS is the book to use. It is truly impressive.

Thank you to NetGalley and Arcturus publishing for an advanced readers copy in return for my honest opinion.

This is simply the best book of this genre that I have come across.It is just so comprehensive in it’s content. It covers everything from anatomical vocabulary to detail of how to draw every feature of a face. I have a few books of this ilk and must say this has the clearest explanations and has had the biggest impact on improving my drawing skills of any that I own. Basic skills such as rule of thumb are explained ; proportions of the body and face and changes due to ageing; how to draw the body from different angles and when moving; how to depict texture etc. Portraiture is also covered in great detail - how to get proportions of the face correct, how to draw eyes, hair, nose, ear and mouth. The step by step illustrations are easy to follow and very clear. It is just excellent. I was given the opportunity to read this ebook in return for an honest review. I would just say that some of the detail of this book was difficult to see on an iPad, so I would prefer to purchase a hard copy of this book as it would also be easier for me to find specific sections quickly. But this is one of the few books I have reviewed that I would definitely buy. Would make a great gift for any budding artist too. My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher.

Sent from my iPad

This is a great book on anatomy and drawing the human form, with good illustrations. I think it could have been presented in a more visually pleasing way, but it does what it intends and is a great guide, although there isn't much in the way of guidance and practice for beginners.

I would definitely recommend or gift this to artists wanting to improve their understanding of anatomy and drawing the human form.

This book is absolutely fabulous, I think it is one of the best books to explain anatomy, and other aspects of drawing the human form.
The chapters are very well illustrated and very easy to follow, as is the information presented - on can read the whole book, of flick to the relevant chapters that are of interest at the time - but you wont be able to help actually reading the whole book - it is so interesting.
The topics also covered are skin and fat, teeth and jaw, contour,pose and gesture, proportions & human figure. capturing texture, tones and shading, musculature of the mouth - There is a whole lot more , all very much in tune with the body structure and movement.
Great Book

This book was interesting but ultimately not what I thought it would be. It gives a lot of guidance and technical terminology, but not much in the way of concrete practice which is what I was hoping for.

Anatomy for Artists is an extensive manual for drawing and studying the human form. It is detailed but easy to follow and would be suitable for artists of all levels. A variety of information and lessons are included studying skeletal form, muscles, connective tissue, and a variety of poses and body forms. Overall a very useful guide for the serious artist.

These types of books never seem to help me any...
that being said, this one does have a similar feel as anatomy books I see being recommended to artists so I think it's pretty solid.

This book offers an incredibly helpful guide to the human figure presented in an easy to understand format with plenty of illustrations- a must buy for any budding artist!

Anatomy for the Artist is a tutorial manual for human anatomy aimed at artists. Due out 1st March 2022 from Arcturus Publishing, it's 478 pages and will be available in ebook format. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a comprehensive and accessible manual. The author's background in medical illustration, physics, and teaching comes through clearly in her extensive and coherent instructions. She presents the human body in line drawings with relevant anatomical terms in glossary lists scattered throughout. There are lists which include anatomical/medical spatial directions and an abbreviated list with Latin prefixes, but they're accessibly defined and not at all intimidating. Relevant lessons on themes such as texture, structure, and layering, are well illustrated with short tutorials in which students can find instruction and inspiration.
This would make a superlative choice for public or school library acquisition, artists/makers studio library, or home use.

Four and a half stars.

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