Customer Reviews

The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I recently picked up this book off amazon. Not only did I see that it recieved rave reviews, but i've had several art teachers who worship this book as the artists bible. However, this is not a simple book. IT IS A PAINSTAKING JOURNEY - designated for only serious art students. If a person were to put all the time and effort like the author suggests into the exercises, they will become an excellent artist. If little time is put in, you mine as well of not bought the book in the first place. One of the other problems with the book is that most do not have beautiful naked models to conduct drawing studies on at their own will. If that were the case wouldnt we all be rembrandts?

After reviewing the other reviews there may be nothing to say. I first encountered this book while brousing in a book store after my art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. The best thing I remembered was be prepared to throw away your first five thousand mistakes. Whoaa! Nicolides tells us " There is a vast difference between drawing and making drawings. The things you will do-over and over again- are but practice." This is a wonderful course of learning vs. drawing. I have given this text to older children as a learning tool. It is better than physical therapy for people who have visual motor problems. No sane person wants to sit and produce 25 drawings in a half hour. Many people say I can do that but do not understand how long it may take each person to accomplish the same task. I learned to cut and pound as a little boy but it required a mentor to teach me finess. It requires experience to teach me patience. The rest is your passion for art. It is a mentor on your bookshelf if you choose to take this path.

Kimon Nicolaides' book shines so brightly amid the darkness of todays reality of fluf, quick-fixes, and superficiality. This book exemplifies what perfection is all about and, as such, can serve as a guide on how to sincerely enrich our lives.

I bought this book, as well as The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, as a gift for my husband in an attempt to lure him back to his art table. This book asks you to put aside everything you think you know about drawing and relearn from scratch. You aren't simply learning to draw a copy of what your eyes see, you learn to draw from your minds eye aswell. To see the shape and form and not just the object as sections. I'm not a good reviewer. I never know what I might say that will give someone a positive impression, but I do know that this book will help a beginner who honestly wants to learn and an established artist who feels they have more to learn. And don't we all have more to learn?

"The Natural Way to Draw" by Kimon Nicolaides, 221 pages

Nicolaides book is often compared to "Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain. Now I understand why. They are both complicated, overly-intellectualized approaches to drawing. Nicoliades writes the better complication however, because his book is approximately 60% wordy text/40% pictures. Betty Edward's is approximately 80% wordy text/20% pictures.

The quote from the back cover, with the full page photo of Nicoliades shows how narrow an approach he holds:

"There is only one right way to draw and that is a perfectly natural way." -Kimon Nicolaides

Anyone who knows anything understands that there are as many approaches to drawing as there are people. If Nicoliades is simply telling us that all ways of drawing are "natural ways" it is a redundant statement, because nobody is arguing anywhere that anyone's drawing is unnatural. Such tautological complications of basic drawing show Nicolaides approach as wordy and intellectualized.

The gesture drawings in the early chapters are uninspiring. The rest of the sparse illustrations seem to come from either student drawings and master reproductions. There are just too few of them. Nicolaides' approach to art is tedious and discouraging and nobody should be expected to read through 221 pages of boring text.

There are much better books on the market with less text and more illustration.

I bought this book based on the reviews here at Amazon, and that was over 4 years ago when there were very little reviews. I wish I had looked at it in the bookstore first because this book wasn't for me. First let me say I agree with almost all the reviews here. Whether you like this book or not will depend on what you want to do. If you're like me, and only want to draw as a hobby, this book is NOT for you. The book requires exercises that must be done every day. It amounts to a couple years of drawing exercises, and that's if done every day. Who has time for that? After that, if you're still interested, I strongly suggest you take a look at the book in person. The quality of the drawings in the book are pretty bad in my opinion. They're scribbles. If I drew like that after 2 years of daily exercises, I'd cut off my drawing hand. Look closely at the cover, look at the picture on the left and right, that is what this book teaches. The drawing in the middle is misleading in my opinion because there are very few drawings like that. So now I've concluded that this book is for people who want to draw scribbles every day for 2 years. A serious art student maybe, but the average person wanting to learn to draw I don't think so.

I strongly recommend "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards if you're a total beginner. If you're not a beginner, my advice is to either continue practicing or find another book. I really doubt this book is for you.

I browsed a copy of this book at the library and I looked at paintings done by Nicolaides on the internet. As far as I can determine, it seems he was just another deluded member of the modern art movement of the early 20th century. I haven't seen any evidence that this book will make someone a good figure draftsman. Justin Sweet's drawings are terrible. I choose not to be one of the lemmings who follow this charlatan Nicolaides. If you want to be a great draftsman of the classical tradition, this book is utter rubbish. We did one minute scribbly gesture drawings in life drawing class, but only for warmup purposes.