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Caroline Mustard
Author
The Joy of Drawing
A 21st century approach to teaching the beginner how to draw in easy steps with video demonstrations for both traditional and digital artists. From learning how to hold a pencil to gaining the skills needed to draw anything, this 80-page manual also provides the student with a printable workbook. Just scan the QR codes at the start of each chapter to access the 20 demonstration videos as well as the printable workbook and you are al set to learn how to draw. Based on over a decade of experience teaching students how to draw, Caroline and Katy's inclusive teaching style stems from their mantra, "No pressure: No judgment: Just joy" as they guide the student to small victories in each chapter and build confidence and pride in the results! Seeing, noticing, capturing, drawing—all that is offered in this outstanding book—will make your life better. Whether young, youngish or beyond, there is outstanding value for you to explore within this book.” Bonnie Bernell, EdD Psychologist, Author, Artist The authors of Joy of Drawing brilliantly blend sequential, realistic skill building and creative, personal style development. The lessons are easy, engaging, and produce motivating results. True Joy!” Sharon Ferguson Artist and Art Coordinator
Reviews
Authors Mustard and Lea pen this inviting introduction to the art of drawing with a warm, encouraging tone, laying out the fundamentals of proportions, gridding, shading, and how to select and grip a pencil. They sprinkle spirited “aha!” moments throughout, moments of realization where a beginner might start to feel that they’re getting somewhere: why it’s important to copy while developing technique; why lighter lines while shading are easier to work with later than heavier ones. For all this book’s smartly planned exercises and heartening coaching—"Don’t pressure or judge yourself because you can’t perfect your drawing”—the authors make no promises of quick and easy triumphs. “If you want to be an artist you have to draw and draw and draw,” they write. “You have to carry a sketchbook everywhere and you have to look, look, look.”

It’s to their credit that this guide, living up to its title, makes that work sound like joy. Framing one’s growth as an artist as a journey whose incidental steps are themselves a reward, The Joy of Drawing offers clear, easy-to-follow instructions, exercises, and inspirational advice. Its prompts are simple—some even meditative—and flexible, targeted to the development of skills and the awakening of creative possibilities while often encouraging looking freshly at the world around you, such as understanding the interplay of light and shadow.

The authors offer hands-on video instruction, too, accessible through QR codes, as well as a host of insightful quotes from artists throughout, samples from their own work and the work of the greats, and much practical advice for specific situations, from estimating proportions to the niceties of drawing a cone. Mustard and Lea’s approach is welcoming even as the authors make clear that art is a practice, a discipline, that demands time and development. What sets this guide apart is that The Joy of Drawing makes that time feel like its own reward, even before a burgeoning artist has captured an essence in graphite.

Takeaway: This inviting guide to drawing lays out foundational techniques for a lifetime in artmaking.

Great for fans of: Bert Dodson’s Keys to Drawing, Claire Watson Garcia’s Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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