The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Rating:
Summary: Not very good
Review: If your try to describe words into pictures let alone using logic or science as a coverup just watch out :)
I bought this because I had the orginal around and I did learn something but I could have learned about space realations just about anywhere. What this book does is take the fun out of drawing and makes it process illustrated or binary. If you would like to paint like Alex Ross go right ahead it's alot of work. The rethoric of words just confuses me and would confuse just about anyone complex soulutions for a practical purpose don't help very much. You would get more inspiration from a walk outside observing space realations then this nearsighted vison of a book.

Rating:
Summary: The best basic textbook of visual arts available ... period!
Review: I used this book in a high school art class 20 years ago and bought the updated version recently when I picked up the pencil again after all these years. It the best basic manual ever written as far as I know. Once you work thru this book you are ready to attack advanced sketching, colored pencil, watercolor, pastel ... anything! If you combine this manual with media-specific books you could essentially become at least a good hobbiest in any media, perhaps more, depending on your potential. I went from this book to subject-specific sketching manuals, then to watercolors and am quickly regaining proficiency after a VERY long layoff. What you'll learn from this text is applicable to any visual art form. I wonder how many of these things have sold? Millions?

Rating:
Summary: I never believed it could be true for a minute...
Review: One of the most important books I have ever read, Betty Edwards' approach to drawing has transformed the way I see, so that now I can draw. I must say that the book on its own didn't accomplish this transformation: I also attended the intensive 5-day workshop, "Perceptual Skills in Drawing," led by Edwards' instructor team at California State University, Long Beach, CA, where she developed the approach. I always said of myself that while I was a fine musician and writer, I had no talent for the visual arts. I can't say that anymore. In five days, with the information in this book and the gentle, patient teaching of the Edwards team, I now can draw realistically, and I have a whole world of art open to me that I would never have believed possible. DRSB is clear, encouraging, comforting, challenging, and beautiful at the same time. I would recommend it to anyone, and while I am still a beginner, I have been absolutely astonished at what has become possible for me now. If you would like to see my "before" and "after" drawings, just ask me. Everything Edwards says in the book has been true for me, and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for my life transformed.

Update One Year Later:

Since my initial drawing awakening a year ago, I have studied with a private art tutor--an art-school graduate and professional fine artist. Her work is very good, and I've learned a lot about composition and color, but it just seems to me that she can't really "see" what we're drawing in the way that I "see" it. She indulges me when I talk about "right brain" drawing, but she doesn't understand it. And she seems amazed sometimes when I get to do it "my way," (slow and deliberate) and my art is markedly better than when I do it "her way" (fast and approximate).

Looking at all these reviews, I notice that many "artists" object to the "right brain" approach, and yet, I observe that they, too, could benefit from its lessons. Dr. Edwards' approach leads to a kind of visual accuracy that makes some art-school-trained artists nervous. As just one example, some classical drawing instruction teaches you to reduce what you see to regular geometric shapes (the hand as an inverted triangle, or the arm as a cylinder) as a crutch to overcoming the left-brain symbol system. On the other hand, having learned the "right brain" approach, I just "see" what's in front of me, and I draw it--accurately. No geometric shapes required. Once your "right brain is engaged," you draw. If it never engages, then you can only make up a different "left-brain" symbol system to attempt a closer and closer approximation of what's in front of you--but it never feels "real." Unless you learn to see with the "right brain," you'll never draw realistically. How you get there is open to discussion and experimentation, but I'd use this approach, if I were you. So, to the artists, I say, if you can draw realistically--I mean REALISTICALLY--congratulations, you're there. If on the other hand, your work is just abstract somehow, and realism eludes you, then keep an open mind. Even you may find a new depth that you never imagined if you walk this path.

For anyone who uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DRSB is a fine example of an INTP book: Beautiful logic with impeccable theory, addressing all the Introverted Thinking questions with patience and clarity. If you're an INTP as I am, you will appreciate why this approach works for us. If you're an Introverted Intuitive, however, (INTJ or INFJ), I expect you'll lose patience with it quickly because that's just not how you learn. It's technical and complete, rather than condensed and "bullet-pointed." Contrast DRSB with "The Complete Book of Painting and Drawing," by Gerald Woods, INTJ, in which he makes sweeping, general statements that are unhelpful because they leave too much to the imagination: "I tell my students to work in terms of the medium," with no further explanation. If you're already experienced with art, you'll know what he means, but if you're not, it's meaningless. Betty Edwards' explanations are complete and specific.

P.S. I, too, have read the Kimon Nicolaides "The Natural Way to Draw," and it IS good--but it's the long way around, requiring weeks and weeks of several hours per day of hard training.

Rating:
Summary: The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Review: The first edition of this book was absolutely fantastic! The manner in which an artists "views" his/her subject is paramont and Edwards teaches the reader how to translate what they see to paper. I highly recommend this book to any visual artist. It will make you better.

Rating:
Summary: Fast Food results
Review: I like the way everyone who gives this book a bad rating is considered as someone who thinks of himself of being an "artist". It's more the opposite: a lot of people who rate this book 5 stars think this book turns them into an artist in a couple of weeks. Even the book itself claims that if you're a professional artist, this book will deepen your artistic perception. The pages and pages of "before and after" drawings remind me of those fitness books that show a flabby guy with a beer gut who turns into Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2 weeks just by doing a 5 minute work-out once a month. This book won't teach you how to draw, maybe it will improve your ability. Drawing is not a static state. Ofcourse you can draw "better", depending on your skills, after you do the exercises. But a 2 year old with a bunch of crayons can also "draw", only less experienced than for instance a 3 year old. The before and after drawings are good in selling this book, but what's the point? Maybe the author should concentrate more on the excercises, rather than trying to prove her methods. Personally I recommend the book "The Natural Way To Draw" by Kimon Nicolaides, if you really want to learn the craft from scratch. This books considers drawing as a life long experience; it is very well written and structured; it will give you a solid drawing ability...but it's a lot of work. It doesn't show magical results in two weeks... but what's the rush? By the way, the author's dead...and he don't wanna sell nuttin', except share his methods with everyone who is willing to learn and improve his drawing ability.

Rating:
Summary: "Right On"
Review: Unlike the bone-headed/sour-grapes/elitist review left by "EEEEEEK" from Urbana, I believe 99% of people remotely interested in drawing and the "magic" behind the ability to express oneself through drawing and/or painting will gain much from this book. Art, specifically drawing, is , unfortunately, seen by most as "something I could never do," despite the fact that we all have innate abilities in that area of expression. This book gives people hope as well as a good background in why we percieve things the way we do. The concepts outlined can bring understanding and facility in life as well as drawing and if you don't believe it, then try toiling away for years on traditional drawing methods and see if you don't end up as discouraged and "wanting to keep it a secret" as "EEEEEEEEK!" from Urbana.

Rating:
Summary: This is an incredible book
Review: I am a "real" artist and make a living at it, and this book totally changed the way I saw things. It teaches you to look at things in a different way, and it helped me to become the artist that I am today. Not only do I highly recommend it but I think it should be required reading for all high school art students. (junior high, too)

Rating:
Summary: Will open your eyes!
Review: I've read both the original edition years ago, and this one. The book is NOT meant to teach you to be an "artist" whose works get sold in galleries. It is meant to awaken the part of you that actually can draw, even if you think you can't, and to help you find the joy in drawing what you see. The negative reviews below are clearly from people who consider themselves to be "real artists", which apparently they define as "someone who has attended art school and now attempts to make a living at it." Sounds pretty condescending to me. P.S. the left brain/right brain idea is proven fact, not "hooey", and was determined long before Betty Edwards ever wrote a book; check out old studies on psychiatric patients whose left brain/right brain connection had been physically severed.
If you enjoyed drawing as a child, but lost that joy on the road to adulthood as many of us did, read this book. And don't let so-called "artists" discourage you; it's not the result that matters, it's the process.

Rating:
Summary: Eeeeek.
Review: Just take a look at the drawing on the cover. That should tell you something. As someone below said, this book might be okay for someone who REALLY doesn't know how to draw (as opposed to the beginning student). There are some people who really are visually challenged, but guess what, they belong in a class where the instructor can push every visualization technique in the book at them. The funny thing about this book is how many of the "before" drawings, as inept as they are, are better than the slick easy cheesy "after" drawings. At least some of the befores have some charm. This book is a true disaster for a creative artist. We all know that real work leads to great drawing and the ability to see. The left brain-right brain is a lot of hooey.

Rating:
Summary: After becoming forcibly left-handed
Review: I have fewer problems with the notion that the left brain/right brain theory has validity.

I loved Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, but it is only recently that I've had a chance to start really working with it. And what a joy to find an updated version! Now I can dismantle my first copy and take the section of the book that I'm working on with me ...

There are many excellent texts teaching basic art skills like drawing.

If you can afford to buy only one to learn to draw -- this is the one.