Most art books give you instruction to improve your technique, building on what you already know. This book taught me how to draw. Literally. This is the book to read if you don't know the first thing about drawing but would really like to learn. ( )

It's a start in learning how to see. I began. ( )

Excellent (so far); succeeds in leading you to being confident and to draw what you actually see. ( )

"The purpose of this book is not to teach you to express yourself, but instead to provide you with the skills which will release you from stereotypic expression," declares Edwards. Just as Updike taught me to look at a painting and see everything in it, Edwards taught me to look at what I sought to draw. Citing research on differences in right brain and left brain function, Edwards bases her teaching method on the premise "that developing a new way of seeing by tapping the spatial functions of the right hemisphere of your brain can help you learn to draw." The exercises presented are designed to train the student to process visual information through the right brain, the side that sees things as they are, rather than the left brain, where human beings store symbols for what they see. The results of working with Edwards's exercises were surprising and satisfying for me. By following the book's instructions, reasonable, realistic representations of people and objects began to emerge from my pencil.

I was working from Edwards's 1979 edition when I learned to draw in 1997. There is a lot of new information in the 1989 edition. She has a greater emphasis on what she calls drawing as a "global skill." Global skills, such as reading, become automatic over time. Thus, by learning the four basic skills Edwards teaches, you will eventually (sooner, rather than later, she claims) draw just as automatically as you read. She has also expanded and improved the skill of sighting and the skill of the perception of lights and shadows. And to aid those who plan on going into painting, she has added a chapter on drawing with color. ( )