The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the Head

Rating:
Summary: not "complete" at all...
Review: "The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the Head" by William L. Maughan, Watson-Guptill Pub, $24.95 160 pages

is a bit of a boast in the title. It is not "complete" because every portrait model shown here holds a totally passive expression. Not one shows the least bit of emotion; neither fear, anger, joy, leering, laughing, scowling or anticipation. They simply stare vacuously straight ahead or to the side with an empty, torpid expression. A really "complete" guide to any kind of drawing will show some animation.

The bestializized Half-human/half-hog, and Half-human/half-elephant, or Half-human/half-vampire portraits are entirely beyond the scope of the topic, pertaining to fantasy art and not human anatomy.

The list price of $24.95 is understandable, after all, it's a hardcover rather than a paperbound book.

If you enjoy alternatively, lifeless portraiture and fantasy portraiture, this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: Clear, useful book on portrait drawing
Review: As a previous reviewer has noted, the title of this book is a bit misleading- it's not a "complete" guide to drawing the head. It really has a rather narrow focus: it concentrates on drawing three-quarter view portraits with (if you follow Maugham's instruction precisely) using two particular colors of pastel pencil on shaded drawing paper. In addition to his specific materials and subjects, Maughan concentrates on teaching chiaroscuro (use of light and shadow to depict form) in a "classical realist" style. However, for what the book really does, it does quite well. Keeping a narrow focus in a drawing instruction book is a virtue. Many drawing books (and I have a lot, since I've been trying to teach myself) try to cover far too much. They try to summarize in a page or two each of the different drawing mediums (pastel, charcoal, pencil, pen, etc.) and different elements of drawing (line, tone, etc.) while not giving you enough depth or detail about any one thing to learn much that's useful. Maughan, though, sticks to his central focus, describes the basic principles of chiaroscuro in an understandable manner, breaks down his drawing process into basic steps, and provides more demonstrations and detail than most books of this sort. The best evidence I can give in its favor is that my drawing immediately improved after I read this book and started practicing its techniques (even though I've mostly been using pencil rather pastel, so you don't have to precisely follow Maughan's recommendations).

Overall, it's one of the clearest and most useful drawing instruction books that I've seen. It's not really an ideal book for people just taking the first steps in learning to draw realistic portraits (for absolute beginners I would still recommend Betty Edwards' flawed but effective "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"). It doesn't have much depth on some of the things that beginners need to learn, such as judging proportion. However, it's a good book to use early in your drawing career.

Rating:
Summary: Great for intermediate
Review: This book is perfect for people with some traditional art training. It was great fun for me since I have taken sight-size training at the Los Angeles Figurative Academy taught by Adrian Gottlieb. Although I didn't feel like I'd made any progress while I was there, now I realized that those tedious sight-size trainings really were the stepping stone toward drawing well. This book complements those trainings. If you have sight-sized skills in your pocket, you can easily applied the theory in this book. Now I am able to draw my family members with great accuratecy and artistic expressions. My drawings look like they were done by someone who had been training for years....(actually, it took me three years of searching for the right techniques before I finally found Sight-Sizing). Remember, there is no such thing as instant shortcut to art training.