Friend, Trudy. 2002. Drawing Problems and Solutions. David & Charles. ISBN: 9780715324035 ($22.99)
Feel the need to hide away and draw peacefully off in a corner somewhere? Be sure to take this book with you. You will learn a lot about sketching and drawing in pencil. This book is a must-have for any journaler’s backpack. Friend demonstrates how to use marks to create: trees & woodland, landscapes & skies, water in landscapes, buildings in landscapes, village houses & cottages, gardens, plants & flowers, vegetables, textures, pets, horses & ponies, and portraits.
Friend’s Drawing and Solutions books are very helpful because she takes the time to identify and explain common problems and presents a solution for each problem. When demonstrating how to draw leaves and stems, for example, she identifies the following as common problems:
- No clear idea about how veins connect to the stem.
- A lack of understanding of how much (or how little) of a leaf can be seen at certain angles.
- A lack of understanding about how to place shadows.
- The creation of shadows that do not follow a leaf’s form.
- The creation of a stem that widens more dramatically than it does on the live specimen.
Other problems Friend addresses that pertain to botanical illustration include:
- The placement of petals.
- How to relate leaves to a stem.
- Veins drawn as lines with no consideration for form.
- Stems drawn at wrong angles.
- The placement of buds and leaves without consideration of structure.
- The placement of a leaf extending towards the viewer.
- The placement of lines without regard to the relationship between negative and positive shapes.
- Not using directional strokes to one’s advantage.
- The hasty placement of lines to represent the gills of a mushroom.
- The creation of line drawings in which tone was added without any consideration of form.
Drawing Problems and Solutions is available primarily as a used book.
Watch Trudy Friend at work!
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