"As long as humans have been alive, we have drawn." ~Justin Maas Drawing is the most essential of all visual arts. Everyone, from sculptors to painters, draws in one form or another. It is also the simplest and most affordable form of artistic expression. All you need is a pencil and paper to make something magical. But to create a successful portrait, one must understand how to capture a person’s likeness--their spirit--and portray it in graphite. In Drawing Realistic Pencil Portraits, artist and teacher Justin Maas provides a step-by-step guide for both novice and experience portraitists looking to enhance their skillsets. His tried-and-true techniques for mastering the basics and accurately rendering proportion, placement and nuance when drawing the head and face will help you add energy and life to your drawings and create recognizable and moving portraits. In this book: • Lessons in drawing basics, including value, line, shadow, light and anatomy • How to work from both reference photographs and live models, plus tips for selecting your subjects • Step-by-step demos to create crucial features, such as eyes, ears, and hair • Methods for building successful portraits, including the grid method, the tracing method and the author's own Maas method • 15 detailed step-by-step portrait-drawing demos with subjects of different ages, genders and ethnicities • A gallery of additional portrait examples in both black-and-white and full color

An introduction to drawing, cartooning, and capturing the essence of a subject all while having fun. It features step-by-step instruction from Professor Blook, Loomis' alter ego on the page.

This complete kit makes it easy to start exploring the exciting art form of pencil drawing because it comes with everything a beginning artist needs—from a set of high-quality materials to comprehensive instructions. The project book covers the basics, such as handling the pencil and applying shading, before delving into simple step-by-step lessons that give would-be artists a chance to apply their newfound knowledge. And every lesson can be accomplished with the array of drawing materials provided. The hardcover case includes a 40-page paperback book with corresponding Spanish instruction, 6 drawing pencils (B, F, H, HB, 2B, 2H), a flat sketching pencil, a charcoal pencil, a sharpener, kneaded and rubber erasers, an artist’s triangle, 2 tortillons, a sandpaper block, and drawing paper and pad. Warning! This product is intended for use by ages 13 and older and is not intended for use by children.

The complete, classic guide to the art of pencil sketching Portable. Erasable. Inexpensive. No other single drawing tool is as versatile as the pencil. Through the centuries, generations of artists have used it to work out ideas, study form, and develop fundamental skills that are crucial to an artist’s training. Pencil Sketching has taught thousands of beginners the basic principles and techniques of pencil sketching. Carefully revised to meet the needs of today’s artists, this edition features easy-to-follow instructions, dozens of new illustrations, and more–everything you need to explore the amazing potential of the pencil and learn to sketch with confidence. Techniques: shading, texture, value, line, strokes . . . Materials: pencils, papers, accessories . . . Skills: observation, recording, composition, sketching from memory . . . Subjects: trees, landforms, water, architecture, cityscapes . . . and more!

In Pencil Art Workshop, artist and illustrator Matt Rota shows to achieve various techniques using graphite, and includes the work of an international gallery of artists for inspiration.

From the best-selling artist and YouTube art instructor, this book features step-by-step lessons that show you how to draw professional-quality portraits, landscapes, travel sketches, and animals using only two ordinary pencils. Great art doesn't have to be expensive. For the cost of a regular graphite writing pencil and an equally ordinary black colored pencil, you can create drawings worthy of framing and displaying. In this straightforward, aspiring artist's guide to rendering a variety of popular subjects with only two pencils, artist and art instructor Mark Crilley presents a direct, approachable, and achievable method for drawing just about anything. The Two-Pencil Method breaks down Crilley's techniques across six chapters of five lessons each. In each lesson, you'll learn how the two-pencil method can add depth and shading, allowing you to create bold and distinctive drawings that go beyond mere sketchbook doodles. The book moves from a primer on drawing basics to step-by-step examples of still lifes, landscapes, animals, travel sketches, and portraits. With each chapter, Crilley's confident and encouraging voice and expert insights demonstrate how to achieve stunning artistic results from the simplest of art materials.

Colored pencil painter Alyona Nickelsen reveals how to use the medium to push the limits of realistic portraiture. Colored Pencil Painting Portraits provides straightforward solutions to the problems that artists face in creating lifelike images, and will prime readers on the intricacies of color, texture, shadow, and light as they interplay with the human form. In this truly comprehensive guide packed with step-by-step demonstrations, Nickelsen considers working from photo references versus live models; provides guidance on posing and lighting, as well as planning and composing a work; discusses tools, materials, and revolutionary layering techniques; and offers lessons on capturing gesture and expression and on rendering facial and body features of people of all age groups and skin tones.

101 Textures in Colored Pencil provides step-by-step instruction and examples of a multitude of textures for creating realistic masterpieces in colored pencil.

Geof Darrow's slick, precise inks and stunning detail have amazed comics fans for decades, from his early work with Moebius; to Hardboiled, his first collaboration with Frank Miller; to the overwhelming excess of his current series, Shaolin Cowboy. Now Darrow provides incredible insight into his process by sharing the pencil drawings behind his meticulous inks in a huge hardcover collection. Featuring the pencils behind well-known covers and never-before-seen drawings alike, Lead Poisoning is a behind-the-scenes look that reveals perfectionism at its best, showing how clean and perfect the initial drawings can be, as well as the bizarre alterations that appear to happen on the fly.