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Published by Andre Deutsch,1988, softcover, large format, illustrated, index, 220 pages, condition: new.
In light of recent reviews, I feel compelled to advocate it. I've taught university life drawing for over 16 years. If you follow the exercises and do as many as required, your drawings WILL improve immensely. While I agree it is in complete opposition to hard edged, refined type drawings--it is so only as a means. When you skip Nicolaides' experiential cohesive gestures, mass drawings and cross contours and straight through to exacting control, your drawings will remain stiff, disconnected and they won't sit naturally in space (a figure is in perspective--just like a house). It's easy to go from loose to tight drawing but very hard to go from tight to loose (yet accurate) because it requires more discipline, focus, quick, accurate observation and excellent hand eye control. These exercises hone those skills.
I have been drawing since I can remember, and I have been seriously studying art for the last five plus years. I have spent a lot of time focused on the crisp, controlled line and form, carefully trying to copy without seeing. I avoided books like this like the plague because I could never "wrap my brain around that abstract thinking gobbledygook."
But recently, I realized that I wasn't progressing. My drawings were lacking something important. That was when I was ready to break away from stereotypes and explore this book. I read through the whole thing first and foremost and he explained exactly what I wanted in my drawings--I knew it, but never knew how to get it. Technical knowledge is great, but without the emotion of the human heart, drawings become stiff, mechanical and lifeless. I wanted *life* in my drawings.
After reading the whole book, I went back and started doing the exercises. Sometimes, they were hard to understand . I hate mysticism-type talk. That whole "feel and don't think." So it wasn't easy. However, I figured out that it isn't exactly mysticism. Really, everything is made of a gesture--if you think about the atoms and energy that naturally flow from all objects, it makes perfect sense. Even an inanimate object is full of energy as the atoms race around.
This book is not the be-all end-all to learning to draw, but it is an important part of drawing. If you couple this with more atelier style lessons, your art will definitely improve and faster than you thought. Balance in everything.
