"Drawing is supposed to be fun! You don't need to be talented; anyone can learn to draw, and we each progress at our own pace."

This book contains the following five weeks of drawing lessons;

Week 1 - Fine Motor Skills
Week 2 - Dimension
Week 3 - Shapes
Week 4 - Shadows
Week 5 - Craft

This book does a good job of explaining and illustrating the basic skills needed for drawing. The book provides a list of drawing materials in chapter one. Chapter one is my favorite part of this book because it consists of warm-up exercises that anyone can enjoy.

Chapters Two through Five include more advanced techniques that will be a challenge to beginners. I think a person with limited drawing experience would need to be extremely motivated and determined to finish all the lessons in five weeks.

I agree with the author that anyone can learn to draw. I think a person who is committed to learning the skills in this book will be successful if they are willing to practice, practice and practice some more.

The author provides links to access video tutorials. These videos should be very valuable in mastering the skills.

MY RATING: 4 Stars Out Of 5

Thank you to NetGalley for an excellent reading experience.

Learn to draw in 5 weeks is a useful, easy, and practical approach for how to lay the groundwork for any aspiring artist.
Many people try to rush through the art learning process, aiming for high detail pieces and complex skills right off the bat, and feel dejected when it doesn't work out to their standards. I myself have been guilty of this! However, by taking the time to properly establish your understanding and mastery of form, depth, and line control, one can take the steps to art improvement smoothly and steadily, without the same struggles as those who neglected mastering the basics. This guide gives a straightforward and friendly approach to learning, complete with a skill schedule to keep your momentum going and your skills growing.

(My file of this arc was formatted incorrectly, and unfortunately it overlapped much of the text and examples! I made it through alright, but hopefully it is corrected for others. Cheers!)

Learn to Draw in 5 Weeks is a comprehensive guide to teach even those struggling with stick figures the basics of drawing. Broken down into a section per week, the book has the reader focussing on:
* Fine Motor Skills
* Dimensions
* Shapes
* Shadows
and finally, Crafting it all together

I will add a caveat here that I had some formatting issues with my arc, so I wasn't able to review all of the text as well as I would have liked. However I was still able to read a good amount of it, and the illustrations and exercises were quite clear.

The book goes riiight back to basics, including how to hold a pen and how to move when drawing for maximum efficiency and clarity of lines. There are some detailed pieces of theory on each topic, followed by practical exercises to do for the week. Towards the end of week 2 and into week 3 we start to look at figures and how to break down what you see into shapes you can draw, exploring 3d shapes and faces, which seems like a big leap until look further at the exercises.

The end goal is to be able to draw people, and the last section is all about balance and movement and scale and perspective and finding your own style. This book is primarily about the *technique* of drawing so while there is a section on aesthetics and composition, there is more focus on figures and individual elements rather than the bigger picture.

A useful resource for drawing and illustration theory and techniques, with some good practice exercises in there, too.

~Many thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review~

This is a great book for beginners!

I'm a complete amateur when it comes to drawing and I loved that this book starts off with the basics: a variety of training and practice exercises and details about pens, pencils and paper and sources for reference photos.

I had fun with this book.

It has been quite some time that I did any art. Last time did so much drawing was when I was still in high school. This book was quite useful. It helped me quite a lot to get my very rusty skills back to what I like it to be.

𝗜 𝗴𝗼𝘁 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗥𝗖 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝗚𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸.

In this non-fiction Art Book the Author promises to teach us how to draw in 5 Weeks
It is divided into 5 parts, one Chapter for each Week.
•Fine Motor Skills
•Shapes
•Dimension
•Shadows
•Craft

The Author doesn't know me and my life-long Quest on how to learn to draw even the easiest Stick Figure.
The author also failed to teach me with Success… but that's Ok. 🤣

It doesn't mean, that the Author will fail with teaching other People reading this Book.

¦ ߹ ¦ · ¦ ߹ ¦ · ¦ ߹ ¦ · ¦ ߹ ¦ · ¦ ߹ ¦ · ¦ ߹ ¦ · ¦ ߹ ¦ · ¦ ߹ ¦

The weekly Exercises were quite okay and I guess, that enough people should be able to learn something out of this Book.

A 3.8 Star Rating from me, rounding up to a nice 4!

𝑰 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞³ 𝐁𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫!

I enjoyed this, but it was bewildering. The exercises appear to be geared towards beginners, but turn out to be fairly complex, with a fair bit of theory included. There are links to video help, which I did not click through to because I wanted a fairly straightforward read-through; perhaps if you take this as a workbook, and take 5 weeks to learn, you will get much more from it than I did.

Still, will be of value for those who want to learn to draw better, and perhaps of more value for those who are at intermediate level. Also great that it’s in comic format—the text is zoomed in when you tap on a block.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Zeitgeist for the ARC.

Learn to Draw in 5 Weeks is a very well written and attractively formatted tutorial guide by KritzelPixel. Originally released in German in 2020, this English language translation from Penguin Random House on their Zeitgeist imprint is 96 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats. It makes finding info much easier later.

This is a useful book full of prompts and exercises for improving drawing techniques set up in a workbook type format. The writing is encouraging and reassuring. It's set up in chapters week-by-week, with exercises which aim to improve: fine motor skills, dimension, shapes, shadows, and craft. The author illustrates with simple lessons throughout which most readers will be able to easily recreate in their own sketchbooks.

Four and a half stars. The illustrations are simple and in black & white / greyscale throughout. Recommended for school or public library collections, activity/maker's group studios, home artists, as well as a potential resource for more formal classroom instruction.

The translation work is entirely seamless and it doesn't read as though it had been translated. The text is in 1st person and is direct and easy to understand. The instruction reminds me of the one-on-one tutelage you receive from a well run workshop class.

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

I read through the whole book, then I did some of the exercises. It is written very informative with a lot of pictures, so it is easy to understand what is meant and what the exercise should look like. Each week it gets more complex and you learn everything that is important to draw, for instance, how to draw dimensions and 3d models. All the exercises make sense and they seem very helpful. The exercises I did, made sense and were helpful. It has been years, since I last drew, so I found them very helpful. It is suitable for a beginner as well, as the difficulty level increases over time but it is doable. I am looking forward to use this book, for the next five weeks from the beginning and I am excited how my progess will look like.
I'd definitely recommend if you are interested to learn how to draw or like me want to get back into drawing. The exercises are explained precisely and nicely, so it is easy to follow!

Reviewed for NetGalley:

Honest review from my ten year old, artist daughter.

This book was fantastic! Some great step by step techniques I can use in my daily drawing. Definitely recommend.

A useful and well-organized book, insightful and informative. I would recommend this as a resource for would-be artists of all ages, and I appreciate how easy the book is to follow from beginning to end.

Think you can’t draw? You are wrong and Learn to Draw in 5 Weeks will teach you how! The guide gives lessons by the week, with practice exercises to be done daily. It begins with a discussion of the materials you’ll need to have on hand. Then you move on to drawing lines, curves and connecting the dots. How does this lead to recognizable art, you’ll wonder? By the last lesson, 5 weeks later, you will be able to draw realistic portraits and thumbnail sketches. Learn to Draw in 5 Weeks is a well organized how-to-draw book for beginners and an excellent reference for more experienced artists. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Zeitgeist and KRITZELPIXEL for this ARC.

This book starts out very simple with introductory exercises to warm up and loosen your hands with doodling and mark making and then it expands from there all the way to multiple different perspective exercises. Some are really easy and some are really sophisticated. It's not "fun" but it's serious and a great look at not just drawing techniques but how to get into the right mindset and how to hold the pen and move your arms etc. A very different and interesting guide. I've been really enjoying working my way through it.

with gratitude to Zeitgeist and netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

Sadly this e-ARC did not format correctly in Adobe Digital Editions, but I tried to evaluate it despite some pages being illegible. This is a very thoughtfully designed drawing course and with practice I do think any interested aspiring artist will see at least some improvement by working their way through it. "Five weeks" is probably rather ambitious but of course every title needs a gimmick - this is a good purchase for the drawing technique section.

Learn to Draw in 5 Weeks : A Beginner's Workbook for All Ages is a good guidebook for anyone wanting to learn the basics of drawing. It is more formal than fun and the illustrations are in black and white. Different techniques are the main focus and everything you learn will be useful for projects of your own. A useful reference book suitable for older children and beginner adults.

This is a very good beginner drawing book. It felt quite a lot like a beginner class with homework. There are lots of black and white illustrations and examples. It didn’t particularly inspire me or feel fun, but it did seem to do a great job of breaking down good drawing into steps and easily acquired techniques. It will work for adults or older kids and teens.

I read a temporary digital copy of this book via NetGalley.

I loved this book! As a complete beginner drawing, I feel like this book is perfect for me to learn the basics. I like the progression and pace of the lessons. By the end of the book, I felt like I had gotten a good grasp of the basics of drawing and prepared to take the next step. I would recommend this book to beginners of all ages looking to get started drawing

The lessons in Learn to Draw in 5 Weeks are easily followed, even if you have no experience in drawing. The explanations are clear and the examples illustrate each principle well. This is a very good instructional workbook and would be extremely useful in honing your skills.

Thanks to NetGalley and Zeitgeist for the ARC.

This has been a great resource for someone new to drawing
~This book was given by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This easy to follow book does a fantastic job of giving you basics to get started in learning and practicing drawing. I wish I would have had more tools like this when I was younger to get me started. I really liked how it had you start off with the fine motor skills that would transition into shading and cross hatching. I love how it has you start learning the shapes then uses it to show lighting and shading. I love how this book is set up and in such an easy way.