Instruction recommendation

[serenada_art]

I'm in what I hope is the tail end of an unscheduled "vacation" from fanart, from art in general. In order to conquer my rather massive artist's block and crisis of confidence, I've started studying figure drawing a bit more formally. And because I'm impatient and still lack confidence (oh, let's just call it a drive to succeed, shall we?), I'm

Comments

[ichthyes]

I study life drawing at a local school to me in Seattle, WA. Not everywhere has such schools, but there are more opportunities than you'd probably think (wherever you may be). For example there used to be a woman who held life drawing figure sessions 5 minutes away from my house that I only found out about a year ago, and they'd been going on for years. You never know what is out there until you look.

I bring this up because there is nothing that will teach you more about drawing than studying a live model. I don't know if you have before or not, but since you asked for book recommendations and sound a bit new to this, I got the feeling that perhaps you haven't. Either way, if you have before and want to get back to it, or have never had a chance to start, I'd say that you should put all of your effort into finding this opportunity if you are serious about studying art, because no book can tell you what you will learn for yourself from live study. Nothing compares to it. Books are only small bits of advice next to it. In fact I would say that a majority of what you will read in drawing books will make absolutely no sense to you and will not teach you anything UNTIL you have taken life drawing, but that is my own experience and I realize it is different for everyone. However... I could not more highly recommend finding a live model opportunity.

If you need helping scouting your area for such a class/ school/ community session, I'd be happy to help you look. It's harder in rural areas of course but you never know.

[serenada_art]

I actually started life classes a couple of months ago. They've been very useful, not least of all because I get to have someone experienced sit over my shoulder and try and address the same shortcomings I was putzing around trying to work on myself.

But, like most classes I've taken, I like the idea of having not just a textbook, but good stuff for extra reading, hence the solicit. There's only so much I can get from a group class, and reading gives me good questions to go back to class with.

Thanks!