...now I use only the most filamental sketchy outlines as a prelude to the painting process. Self-styled art mavens keep telling me I should be drawing continuously but after thirty years it's like swimming. No thanks, I too prefer the odors of the mediums and the pleasure of pushing paint.
The difference, for me, is that I arrive at the easel with an idea fully formed. Picasso and whomever can allow the painting to extract itself from the artist but in my case the artist aspect is mental, cerebral, idea-based. The painting part is an afterthought.
If you wish to review some exceptional drawing lessons and exercises, acquaint yourself with the how-to books of Andrew Loomis, a fabulous advertising illustrator whose practical acumen holds up to this day. He worked mostly during the middle third of the twentieth century. Used copies of his out-of-print books can be pricey ($175 - $500!!!). Check out a major public library.
When I was a kid, after a few years of Winky Dink just about drove me blind, I discovered the public library. And there I found a compelling book about cartooning, or was it caricaturing? Or was it drawing?
It was called Fun With A Pencil by Andrew Loomis. I cannot recollect how many times I checked out that book during the next couple years, but it was a lot.
Though Loomis' books are out of print, his fans are legion, and various Internet websites are engaging in a cooperative effort to revive his works. His family undervalued his worth and failed to protect his copyrights. Herewith, for everyone who appreciates Andrew Loomis' inestimable contribution to art self-instruction, and for anyone diving into the deep end of drawing, are some online resources:
Andrew Loomis Lives!
This website contains downloadable Adobe Acrobat
Reader PDF files of two Loomis books, Fun With
A Pencil and Figure Drawing For All Its
Worth. PDF (Portable Document Format) files
enable you to print out pages exactly as they were
designed in the original books! PDF files can be
saved to your hard drive and then you can either
print them out or read them on your monitor display.
http://www.saveloomis.org/
The Loomis Project
Here one can simply read Figure Drawing
For All Its Worth in its entirety online.
http://www.yoyodyne.net/loomis/
Online Anatomy for Artists
This site contains several online anatomy books
including Loomis' Figure Drawing For All Its Worth.
http://www.fineart.sk/anat.htm
Bud Plant Illustrated Books
At this site you can purchase Loomis books (or others
from a wide selection of illustrated books if you head
backward to its homepage). A red @ next to a
title means that there is a copy in stock.
http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/loomis.htm
Finally, I'll repost links to a couple online compendium sites that represent a vast number of Used Book Stores around the globe. Here you can shop by title or author and compare prices and quality from different sources, but you are generally dealing not with the website proper but with the individual book store which carries the edition you select. My wife and I have stumbled onto pleasant surprises buying through these services, including finding 30+ copies of an out-of-print book I illustrated 30 years ago!
Now a subsidiary of Amazon
http://www.bibliofind.com/
But I usually get more hits from
http://www.bookfinder.com/
Oh, and here is a results list of 2,320 websites
that came up on a Google exact-phrase search for:
"andrew loomis"
Happy Loomis Hunting!
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