Drawing: Faces & Features

This was a very informative book, giving you a very accessible set of tools for both beginner and intermediate art. Each chapter offers different lessons from basic perspective to fine details, light sources and shading. I really appreciate as well breaking the face down into separate elements and highlighting differences in form. Some books and tutorials can feel very limited but this book feels like the perfect jumping off point to improving my art at my own pace.

Drawing: Faces & Features Learn to draw step by step by Debra Kauffman Yaun is a book I requested from NetGalley and the review is voluntary. This is a great book for beginners or those wanting to improve your graphic pencil art. There are several step-by-step instructions for faces and facial features. It shows how to draw the features from various angles. There are guide lines for placement of the features on the face for all ages groups and at different angles too. Lots of information packed in this short book. Lots of pictures throughout.

Drawing: Faces & Features is a new entry in the Learn to Draw series of booklets. Due out 7th May 2019 from Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint, it's 40 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.

This booklet, by artist Debra Kauffman Yaun focuses on realistically representing 3 dimensional objects, the elements of the human face, onto a 2 dimensional surface. Instead of providing specific project tutorials, the book focuses on thematic lessons such as proportion, lighting, drawing from life, capturing a likeness, depicting age, details, and tonal values. The book includes a general introduction to tools and materials which is identical across all the booklets in this series followed by a very short overview of the underlying anatomy of the human head.

This booklet separates the drawing process into technical elements which can be studied and mastered by any student with practice.

This would make a super gift with a set of pencils or drawing materials (also available as a coordinating package from Foster) for learning realistic graphite portraiture.

Four stars.

I occasionally draw cartoons but they are jumpled heap of lines. They are never ever three dimensional.

Before I read it , I thought drawing capability is inherent but this book changed my opinion.
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It depicts systematically how to draw good pencil drawings. It starts with basic outlines and gradually tells basic principles of shading.

It teaches drawing a 3 D eye or nose. It depicts how to draw shadows depending on source of light.
It gives basic scaffold of adult and child face in various positions. It teaches basic difference in basic anatomy of face in different age groups from infancy to old age.

Lovely book with lots to read and gain for an artist.

I now know what drawing teachers can be if they choose to teach well.
A great artist decides to produce a guide for all amateur artists and in process produces a great hand book.
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All pictures drawn in the book are awesome.

Thanks netgalley and publisher for review copy.

One of the hardest things to do is to draw the faces of real-life people. This book provides excellent step-by-step guidance that is clearly explained and well-illustrated. It is a superb resource for the beginning student or someone who is looking to improve their skills in this area.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book that was provided by the publisher through Net Galley. However, the thoughts and opinions presented here are my own.

Drawing: Faces & Features would be great for students in schools just starting out or for any artists just starting out. Full of information and techniques.

Can someone, please, explain to me why is it so hard to draw a face? Like, really, I don't get it! It starts so well and I end up with a troll. Every time.

I liked that this book focused very much on the features and I already saw several things I was doing wrong. However, my faces are still very ugly. Story of my life. But the highlight of this? I finally understood how to draw wavy hair!

One of the series’ more complex step by step guides that looks at drawing people. It once again contains wonderfully transferable knowledge and skills before giving a number of tutorials on the most important aspect of this form of drawing; proportions.

This one is probably for intermediate artists. Those who have already developed some skills drawing features and need help putting them all together. Adding hair, showing age, etc. it’s really good at that. If, however, you need tips for things that many struggle with like eyelashes, noses, hands? I’d wait on this book until you feel confident with the individual features already and are ready to move on to full faces..

For full disclosure I cannot draw at all.....well I can manage a very basic dog or rabbit face. My other half however and daughter are more artistically inclined but with not great results. So I was interested to receive Drawing: Dragons and Drawing:Faces and Features. Could it improve them or teach me to draw. Well yes and no. The results are promising for them, they've picked up some great techniques. Me however, well I think my outlet is words not pictures and a book can't change that. But I can't give them less than five stars just from seeing the improvement in especially my seven year olds drawing.

Great introduction to drawing faces. Everything you need to know about proportion which is were most people go wrong! Also shows the differences between young and old faces. A few hour with this book and you will feel more confident in your ability to capture a likeness.

This is a more advanced tutorial book for drawing faces, and would be suitable for those artists with some experience.. It does give excellent step by step instructions and provides detailed explanations of how to draw specific facial features.. For anyone who finds drawing faces hard this is the perfect study book. Overall very good.

This is a very good basic book on drawing faces, adding in features and age via pencil drawing. The information is pretty good, easy to understand and follow, it touches the surface of drawing from life, looks at profiles, hair and how to create age within the features and proportions, a very good book for someone who like t try their hand at drawing lifelike faces.

Every book in this collection begins with a decent breakdown of materials needed, as well as some of the more basic steps regarding techniques (shading, etc.). It’s basically an identical first chapter, which is actually a good thing. It means that the true variation is the subject matter and that any of the books would make a good gift without one worrying “Oh but this one has more initial information.”

That being said, this is my absolute favorite in the collection as there is so many areas in drawing people that require practice, from eyes to hair to depicting age decently. This book really takes the time to let people practice each of these areas.

This book is designed for beginners who love to draw. The book is short read with very easy step by step instructions on how to draw faces, shading techniques and tips, and so much more. If you know anyone who loves to draw, this book will be used so much to reference and learn the easy way. I have never seen any learning to draw books that explained how to draw faces so easy.

This was a well organized and fairly comprehensive guide to drawing faces and features. It explains general concepts (such as facial proportions and shading techniques) as well as details that will make all the difference, like facial angles, hair and skin tone. I think this will mostly benefit artists who have some experience drawing faces and are in need of a boost in their skills, such as representing different ages accurately. I think beginners would benefit more from a book with a narrower scope and more detailed steps.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m coming at this from the perspective of a total beginner. I’ve tried to draw a little bit by myself and that’s the extent of my experience and knowledge. Having said that, I thought this book was really good and to give quite a broad introduction to the whole area of drawing. It’s focussed specifically on faces, of course, but I feel as though it wouldn’t be too hard, once you understood the techniques, to transfer them to other things.

I was a bit thrown at first because there only seemed to be a page or two about each section, or aspect, I’m not sure of the right word. But after a while I realised that what this book does is to introduce a whole range of ideas to you and go over them thoroughly but in quite a basic way. This way, you can practise what’s in the book but you can also read more detailed books – or look online for further related techniques, and so on. The book gives you a sort of grounding in everything, as far as I can tell.

So, for example, there are precisely two pages on shading techniques, which doesn’t seem like a lot. There’s a little bit of text giving you various useful tips, then some diagrams demonstrating some ways of shading and ways to use it, plus a box showing how different pencils affect how shading works. It’s all quite basic and it’s very obvious that there’s a lot more that could be said on the subject. Yet just those two pages give you plenty to practise and consider without completely overloading a total beginner.

The rest of the sections follow a similar structure, giving you enough information to make a decent start and plenty of things to work on. This book seems to me to be a really excellent starting point, and I’m looking forward to trying out some of the tips and suggestions.

I love this book. I love drawing but never really have the time to do it. This book helps me with the basics and gives me good advice on how to improve my techniques. Very helpful and instructive.

I have no words to express how glad I am that I found this book. I've been looking for books that's teach me drawing without just basically drawing and actually explaining the steps and techniques. This book did just that!

Not only drawing faces, I now finally understand all the mistakes I was making while drawing just about anything. I'm also grateful for the little section in the beginning that gave a brief overview of all the tools required in drawing. None of the YouTube videos told me what that pointy white thing was or explained about any of the tools satisfactorily. I've already pulled out my pencils to start sketching, and thanks to the book, I have lots of portraits to practice on!

Also, while this book focuses mainly on faces, it gives a basic idea of all aspects of sketching from outlining, to lighting and shading. I've done a few portraits myself, and I'm glad to realize what went wrong. Definitely recommended!