If
you have seen Mr Bammes’’ earlier work The
Complete Guide to Life Drawing
(also reviewed on this site) then you will be familiar
with his style. If not, prepare for an impressively exhaustive
course in drawing. Most art books teach you how to draw the
outside of something, but here you are also instructed about
what is inside the subjects you are drawing. Getting the structure
right is after all more likely to result in a lifelike representation,
and this book goes into anatomy in some depth. There are pictures
of skeletons and proportions all marked out, which is very
helpful. Each chapter also contains plenty of things to try
out for yourself, including observation of your would-be subjects.
To its detriment, at times there is rather too much information
about anatomy. Reading through pages of this type of thing
if you are interested in drawing rather than training to be
a vet can be more than a little daunting, as well as difficult
to understand. Skipping through and concentrating on the drawing
alone is not quite enough to truly grasp it all, so I would
recommend this book to those who are truly determined to master
the art of drawing animals rather than the dabbler. Some prior
knowledge of (or at least interest in) anatomy would be a
help too but if this is you then after having worked through
this book you should be pretty au fait with the art of wildlife
drawing.
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