Here
is the latest title in the popular How To Draw series,
this time focusing on a more unusual subject--the wonderful
world of insects.
If
you haven’t seen any of the other titles, this
is a series that shows you how to draw a set of themed
subjects in about eight stages. It starts
with the simplest shapes, with each new stage showing
what has been added to the drawing in a different color.
The final two pictures usually show the image shaded
in with pencil, and then painted in color. This
book shows the insect as a line drawing in black ink,
and then the same inked drawing with the addition of
colored pencils. Some of the titles leave
out too many stages between the last simple stage and
the first shaded pencil depiction but not this one. The
clear, crisp lines of the ink are ideal for these slightly
simplified but attractive studies of insect life, although
the colored pencils are a bit pale to truly capture
some of the lovely hues of the brighter specimens. Apart
from a brief introduction this is, like all the others
in the series, a book where the pictures do the talking. There
is a list to help identification, and you can then choose
from a lissom dragonfly, ball-rolling dung beetle, impressive
hornet, huge goliath beetle and my own favorite the
beautiful oleander hawk moth, plus twenty-three others. This
is one of the best titles in the series, truly suitable
for a beginner and a lot of fun to work through.
|