Ten-Step Drawing: Flowers - Review

Ten-Step Drawing: Flowers

By: Walter Foster Creative Team

Publication: August 7th 2018 by Walter Foster Publishing

128 pages

Genre: Non-fiction, Arts, Crafts

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--Featuring illustrated tutorials for drawing 75 different flowers, Ten-Step Drawing: Flowers breaks down each subject into 10 simple steps; moreover, all you need is a pen or pencil and a piece of paper!

Handy prompts help artists by encouraging artistic individuality, as well as helpful tips for drawing other subjects not featured in the book. Ten-Step Drawing: Flowers is sure to encourage even the most reluctant amateur artist to break out a pen and paper and doodle to their heart’s content! !

After my failed attempt at Ten-Step Drawing: Animals, I was afraid that Ten-Step Drawing: Flowers would follow the same path to DNF. But as it turns out, flowers are a little bit less complicated than animals--at least for me.

One thing I've learned over the years with my attempts to draw is that I don't respond well to starting off with circles and guidelines. I mean yes sometimes I use them, but not nearly so much as these books do. Perhaps, that might be one of the reasons why I'm not as skilled as I'd like to be. But once I get a circle down on my paper--no matter how lightly drawn--I can't seem to get passed that shape and transform it into something else. So in this way, these tutorials didn't serve me well.

I think for me it would have been better to focus on one flower or bloom and get it down quite well before doing groups of each particular flower. I suppose the groupings were to show the different possible positioning of each flower type, but I just needed more detail on one flower or petal even to get the general guidelines before moving into groupings.

I also mentioned this in my review on Ten-Step Drawing: Animals, but I didn't like that one step wasn't just one line. One step could actually be broken down quite extensively sometimes. So this felt like stretching the title a bit in my opinion. Perhaps I'm too literal.

I didn't enjoy Ten-Step Drawing: Flowers as much as I hoped I would but I did finish it feeling challenged. This to me is probably the perfect place to be. I don't want to finish a drawing tutorial book feeling like I can already do the art available without the help of the book such as I felt with Anywhere, Anytime Art: Colored Pencil, but I also don't want to feel as though I'll never be able to achieve any of the subject matter in my own art such as I felt with Ten-Step Drawing: Animals. That being said, Ten-Step Drawing: Flowers lands right in the middle with a 3 Star rating. Have you read Ten-Step Drawing: Flowers? What did you think? Let me know!

Ten-Step Drawing: Animals - DNF Review

Ten-Step Drawing: Animals

By: Walter Foster Creative Team

Publication: August 7th 2018 by Walter Foster Publishing

128 pages

Genre: Non-fiction, Arts, Crafts

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--Featuring illustrated tutorials for drawing 75 different animals, Ten-Step Drawing: Animals breaks down each subject into 10 simple steps; moreover, all you need is a pen or pencil and a piece of paper!

Handy prompts help artists by encouraging artistic individuality, as well as helpful tips for drawing other subjects not featured in the book. Ten-Step Drawing: Animals is sure to encourage even the most reluctant amateur artist to break out a pen and paper and doodle to their heart’s content!

Ok so my first mistake was assuming that "ten steps" = ten lines. I kind of feel like this book is cheating a bit because each of these steps often includes a lot more than one line or shape. Each step might have multiple pieces to it, and for me that kind of defeated the purpose.

I don't know why I thought this would be easy...maybe because the description made it seem so. And even the steps themselves seem easy. But you can't just say "draw a flat ovalish shape" and have the results come out looking like the illustrations in this book. Well perhaps someone out there could, but me...not so much.

Another thing I've always struggled with in drawing is perfectionism. Art is much more subjective and unless I'm copying or tracing an image, it will never look like what I see in the illustration or picture. And what's in my head never translates to paper.

Aside from that, I knew from the very first animal that this book was going to be too advanced for my skill level. Let's take a look at the first animal in the book.

I'm not quite sure what I expected, but it wasn't this. Sadly, Ten-Step Drawing: Animals was quickly DNF'd. Have you tried Ten-Step Drawing: Animals? What did you think? Let me know!