Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing by Suzanne Brooker

Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing by Suzanne Brooker ISBN-13: 9780399580666 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Watson-Guptill Released: August 7, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
This beginner's guide to drawing in graphite pencil uses step-by-step exercises to teach fundamental methods for rendering all aspects of the natural landscape, with additional lessons on using charcoal, colored pencil, pastel, and other media.

This book pairs the most universally-pursued topic for artists (drawing) with the popular subject matter of the natural landscape. Brooker breaks down landscapes into their various elements--including the terrain, water, sky, and trees--to convey how the fundamentals of drawing are applied to capture each aspect. Using the graphite pencil as her baseline instrument, Brooker provides you with step-by-step lessons that help you improve your rendering skills.


My Review:
Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing teaches the basic techniques of drawing and how to apply them to landscape drawing. The author started by talking about the different tools and materials for drawing. She explained various terms and techniques, like foreshortening, perspective, proportion, and such. She also covered the basics like how to hold a pencil, the grid method, composition, light and shading. She talked about how to apply these concepts to a drawing when you begin a drawing.

Then she specifically talked about how to draw sky, terrain, trees, and water. In each section, she provided several step-by-step demonstrations showing how to draw different types of clouds, trees, etc. The first part of the book focused on pencil drawing, but she did cover charcoal pencils, colored pencils, and pastel pencils at the end and included one demonstration for each. Overall, I'd recommend this informative book.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.