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About the Book
Drawing from Observation 3e
by Brian Curtis
Perceptual drawing, in which one renders the physical world as it appears to an observer, is the focus of the third edition of this introductory skill-based perceptual drawing text rooted in Renaissance tradition, whose previous two editions have been best sellers since its release in 2001.
With an emphasis on carefully sequenced skill development, Drawing from Observation 3e offers clear explanations of hands-on techniques embedded within a broad-based cultural framework thereby establishing a compelling argument for the value of perception-based drawing as an essential tool for nurturing artistic expressiveness and self-awareness.
Students who complete the carefully sequenced lessons will be well prepared for more advanced work creating and manipulating representational images that convey convincing illusions of three-dimensional space.
New to the Third Edition
New to Drawing from Observation 3e are two innovative chapters on figure drawing that include 72 new master figure drawings, 32 new technical illustrations, and 75 new student drawings. The first new chapter (Figure in Context) surveys the history of the human figure in art from the Paleolithic era through the postmodern period. The second new chapter (Figure Drawing) applies the existing observational drawing lessons from the preceding seventeen chapters to the challenge of effectively rendering the human figure.
Adopted at over 250 colleges and universities worldwide
Adopted at over 250 colleges and universities throughout the United States, Australia, Singapore and South Africa, and translated into both Chinese and Portuguese Drawing from Observation 3e grew out of an understanding that there are wide-ranging sensory and intellectual benefits to be gained by drawing from observation. For much of the past six-hundred years perceptual drawing has been considered the premier course of study for developing visual sensitivity in that it not only provides developing artists with a structured series of hands-on drawing exercises that train the eye to be discriminating and the hand to be sensitive and responsive but it also provides an effective foundational vantage point from which to encounter the rationalized perceptual space that was introduced during the Renaissance by Brunelleschi, Alberti, Piero, and Leonardo. When all is said and done, it is the understanding that is derived from knowing how images make spatial meaning that is the most valuable of all artistic tools.
Drawing from Observation 3e is very different from all other drawing texts that are available in the way it weaves together these two complementary approaches: one rooted in hands-on mechanics, and the other in relevant background theory and/or explanatory material.
Illustrating the text throughout there are 132 master works. 426 technical illustrations, and 450 examples of outstanding student projects.
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Brian Curtis has been teaching studio art at the college level for nearly 40 years. He is a representational painter whose most recent series of paintings focused on dramatic skies above the ancient stone monument in England known as Stonehenge. He is now returning to psycho-mythological narratives that explore the transitional, tentative psychological states that occur between times of purposeful activity. In an age that is often categorized as being in a state of perpetual crisis he seeks, by monumentalizing the ordinary, to reveal the shared emotional core that is embedded in everyday experience.
Brian is currently on the faculty at the University of Miami where he serves as coordinator for the graduate and undergraduate painting and drawing programs.
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