The Figurative Artist’s Handbook: A Contemporary Guide to Figure Drawing, Painting, and Composition

An Authoritative, Comprehensive Guide
for Today’s Figurative Artists
 
Mastering the figure isn’t just an old-fashioned “foundation” skill—it’s an essential tool for any serious visual artist. At a time when renewed interest in figurative art is surging throughout the art world, author Robert Zeller presents The Figurative Artist’s Handbook—the first comprehensive guide to figure drawing and painting to appear in decades.
Fresh and thoroughly modern in his approach, Zeller brings together three figure-drawing methods long thought to be at odds, synthesizing these seemingly incompatible techniques to achieve a cohesive and complete understanding of the human figure. Although all three methods underlie contemporary fine-arts practice and education, no artist’s handbook has ever combined them before:
·      The Gestural Method: Rooted in the Mannerist style of the 16th and 17th centuries, the gestural method emphasizes life, rhythm, and movement in the human body.
·      The Structural Method: A mainstay of 20th- and 21st-century art instruction, the structural approach applies an architectural perspective to the body, building armatures for anatomically sound, solid figures.
·      The Atelier Method: Based on the training provided by 18th- and 19th-century art academies, the atelier approach creates sensual, smooth renderings based on meticulous study of the figure’s surface morphology.
Covering all the basics as well as many advanced techniques, The Figurative Artist’s Handbook is aimed at both students and experienced artists. A hard-working how-to guide, it provides in-depth step-by-step instruction and—rare among figure-drawing books—features sections on composition, portraiture, and painting. Chapters on creativity and on using a sketchbook help readers hone their artistic vision and evolve ideas from the initial inspiration to the fully developed work. Also included is an extensive section highlighting the great movements in figurative art throughout history—from ancient Egypt and Greece to the present.
 
Illustrated with Zeller’s own exquisite drawings and paintings as well as works by nearly 100 historical and contemporary figurative art masters, the handbook is also a treasure trove of the finest figurative art of the past and the present day.