This book is too fucking long, 600 pages, jesus what can i skip?

>>3034451
>being this lazy
Ngmi

>>3034457
i can't waste hours reading something that is not even my main language and that doesn't explain me how to draw

>>3034458

this book have a lot of translations, I remembered reading this book in my native language many years ago.

critical thinking is part of learning... just skim and assess what info you need to learn most.

>>3034451
>op cant read

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>>3034469

>>3034451
Read Keys to Drawing instead. It teaches the same shit and is much shorter because it doesn't have all the unnecessary pseudoscience mumbo jumbo.

>>3034478
Is it better or worse?

>>3034518
It's more organized and each chapter ends with one page (the "Key") summing up what you've just read and a list of the exercises for that chapter.

>>3034451
This book is not good and is full of pseudoscience...

but, if you think you can't draw it will change your mind.

Skip everything and just go to the first lesson, learn how to use her technique and you will learn how to copy anything you see.

After you learn this lesson dump the book and go look for some real art books.

>>3034589
what are some real art book?

Perspective made easy, handprint guides, Watts Atelier of Arts, FORCE book series... Keys to drawing for the beginner.

>>3034599
Also learn art history.

>>3034589
So should i only do the first lesson and then change book?

>>3034451
NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT

>>3034626
what?

>>3034451
is that the cover? i swear it used to have a way less pretentious one

>>3034636
there are 4 versions of this book, this is the lastest one (from 2012)

>>3034620

The important part in his post is here:
>if you think you can't draw it will change your mind.

That's the most valuable thing you'll get from the book. You'll acquire in a mere week some hand/eye coordination and realize that you have an innate ability to copy anything you see.

My personal advice would be to do all the exercises until the final self-portrait. It should take a week of work only (exercices like drawing the Contour of a Vase shouldn't take you much time), providing you skim through the anecdotes about her students and her quotes of the Buddha and only pay attention to the Exercises - as the explanations about what to Do and don't Do are there.

Then do the additionnal self-portrait, because it's funny, then quit. The rest is about calligraphy and color and the additionnal exercises aren't interesting.

>>3034451
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>>3034451
I don't even know if this any good. It's been out since I was a kid and it was like one of the most popular beginner books on the shelf - but I distinctly remembering having a bad impression of it and never having any desire to buy it.

So instead I went with Jack Hamm's anatomy book. Not the prettiest book out there but I actually learned a heck of a lot of anatomy from it, many pointers which I still use to this very day.

It doesn't really teach you about drawing unfortunately.

I'd say in this day and age if you want to learn drawing-drawing (perspective, shading, etc.) pop the 5-6 dollars to get a decent tutorial from a great artists or even find a free one on the net.

The draw-a-box site is decent.

Learning to draw is really just learning 3 things: 1 appeal (almost no one teaches this you have to study stuff yourself) along with this is composition (lots of people teach this.

2. Perspective - not many teach this in depth but a zillion people teach the basics and leave the zillion years of practice up to you.

and finally

3. knowledge of your subject (this includes anatomy, how a car is built, a motorcycle, what leaves look like, whatever.) This last part can be done by study- (so you can draw from your imagination) by direct reference (you use a ref and copy it mostly, including the angle of the ref) or indirect reference (you reference something for how it's BUILT and knowledge about that object, but you aren't copying the angle directly.)

Drawing from the imagination is STILL drawing from reference, the reference just happens to be your knowledge of what you're drawing, that you have stored in your brain.

>>3034674
>It should take a week of work only
The book is meant to take a semester's amount if time to work through, based on the classes she taught (I went to the college she taught at). If you're blowing through the book in a week, you're not going to get much from it - which explains why so many here don't improve over time. There's no shortcuts here.
A real artist would find the whole book interesting. I did. I know a lot of professionals, like myself, who thought it was a great book. You really have a shitty attitude towards art, you think it's something that can be cheated.

>>3034723
>Drawing from the imagination is STILL drawing from reference, the reference just happens to be your knowledge of what you're drawing, that you have stored in your brain.

No, not at all. Please end this retarded meme. Your brain is not a harddrive.

When you are drawing subjects from imagination that you have studied you are drawing conceptualized forms and shapes that have been processed in your mind. The process of drawing from imagination is utterly different from copying a reference in front of you and is a separate skill set all together.

>>3034451
skip the book, just learn to draw what you see, instead to draw what you think is there

>>3034871
I've always seen it as advanced symbol drawing. I mean, drawing from imagination is literally symbol drawing, except your symbols are a lot more accurate and diverse than that of a beginner.

>>3034451
just draw photos upside down

there you don't have to read 600 pages

>>3034893
does that really work?

>>3034898
yes it helps to get rid off symbol drawings

>>3034589

The book does have a lot of questionable info but as far as exercises go I think the lessons in it are better than in most other art books especially those step by step ones. There was another version of the book where most of the psychology stuff got taken out and it's mostly the exercises, OP might benefit more from that one.

>>3035027
That should be the workbook version, It's filled with more exercises than what the regular book has.

>>3034840

She teaches the content of her book in 5-days seminars - except the additionnal chapter on color (which she teaches seperately in another seminar). You can look it up on her own website, she's posting the improvement of her students after 5 days.

> A real artist would...

Not all artists share that opinion, some finds the Right-Brain theory to be misleading for students as drawing includes a lof of decisions which would be based on the "left brain" (if it existed).
For example Wei Xu, an artist and a teacher with a Phd in Mathematics:

> If you close your eyes (shut down your R-mode), your efforts to learn math will automatically be done in L-mode, and therefore you'll learn math much better.

If anything, the R-mode is a useful analogy (=we must learn to see daily things in a different way) but there's no point in pondering the twenty something pages talking about it as a fact since it is not currently supported by neuroscience.

>>3034451
This book is kind of retarded, to be honest

>>3034451
> 600 pages

Come on OP, there are merely half as many pages, they got rid of the chapter on color, and it's not written in small fonts.

Take a notebook, skim through the book and note down any page worth to be read seriously. Then go through a second iteration of reading the book, skipping anything which isn't noted as noteworthy in your notebook. Do the exercises and take extra notes.
It will force you to focus and also when re reading your notes it will help you to memorize the important stuff.

just skim through it
author's senile and tried to include all her bullshit rambling in 600 pages
the important thing is that you do the exercises. you can basically just skip everything but the exercises but id recommend just skimming through it. if she ever goes on about brain science jewish magic or whatever just skip through it.

>>3034451
A fucking beginner and you're already complaining, tsk tsk tsk.

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IMO the book is garbage and not worth ones time.
Read this instead anon

>>3036668
what do you mean "imo", it's everyone's opinion betty edwards is garbage and not worth anyone's time

>>3036662
That's what I thought, not implying that the book is good, it is not, but this book is like very easy mode and he is complaining 20 pages in...

Not sure if the anon is gonna make it. Just wait until he gets Color theory and in depth perspective. Or the long grinding hours memorizing muscles and getting good.

>>3036688
A good text is the same as a good teacher.
Edwards writes like a retard and the pseudoscience subconsciously hurts the good parts of the book.

>>3034451
dunno i think its good for absolute beginners, nothing more though.