Sunday, October 10, 2010

Books for Art Junkies

Thanks to the National Art Gallery of Singapore for picking Imaginative Realism as one of the "Top Five Books for Any Art Junkie."

7 comments:

goat89 said...

HAHA! I am from Singapore! I hope you do pop by Singapore Mr Gurney. Would love to see an exhibition on your works there! Congrats!

bill said...

Well deserved. Ultimate compliment: I use it often in my illustration classes and had my copy stolen. I'm not worried though. I'll just keep an eye out for a student who makes leaps and bounds progress then I'll have my culprit.

Don Cox said...

The landscape one looks nice.

This is the book list I suggested for the students here:

Ernest Norling - Perspective Made Easy ISBN-13 978-0-486-40473-8 ISBN-10 0-486-40473-0

Stan Lee and John Buscema - How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way ISBN 0-907610-66-8

James Gurney - Imaginative Realism - How to Paint What Doesn't Exist ISBN-13: 9780740785504 ISBN-10: 0740785508

James Gurney - Color and Light - A Guide for the Realist Painter ISBN-13: 9780740797712 ISBN-10: 0740797719



and for a fifth - maybe "Drawing People" by Barbara Bradley, or "Figure Drawing without a Model" by Ron Tiner.

But so many great books are old and out of print, such as the whole How to Draw series from Studio.

James Gurney said...

Goat, I'd love to go to Singapore some day. I've heard so many great things about it.

Thanks, Bill. I'm not sure if your student deserves a medal or a warrant.

Don, what an honor to be on that list! What are the Studio "How to Draw" books? And where do you teach?

Michelle Johnson said...

Congratulations! That is high praise indeed.

Max West said...

Your book definitely deserves to be up there, Mr. Gurney. Art and Fear is a worthy title too. I have a copy of it on my bookshelf.

I'm a bit disappointed though - I feel that the New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Dr. Betty Edwards should be on that list or at least get an honorable mention. That has not only good instruction on learning to draw, but some fascinating theories on the mind and how it relates to learning to draw.

Mark Vander Vinne said...

Congrats James, and I couldn't agree more. What a great book you have there.

The landscape book they suggest is good, but I believe Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting is the bible of landscape painting books.

The other two books I would include are unfortunately out of print and both by Andrew Loomis: Creative Illustration and Figure Drawing for All It's Worth. I consistently go back to those and am constantly amazed that I learn something new every time I open them up.

I learned a lot about how to construct the figure from Buscema's How to Draw Comics, suggested by Don Cox, and sometimes think I should pick it up again, as my copy from the early 80s is long gone.