Figure Drawing Atelier: An Instructional Sketchbook

by Juliette Aristides

"The best way to learn about art is to make it. Discover the secrets of great figure drawing as you sketch along with past and present masters. This working artist's sketchbook guides you from beginning gestures to delicate rendering. It's your art, your tradition, your time. Take your voice and add it to the tradition as if the history of art has saved the best for now." Juliette Aristides Figure Drawing Atelier offers a comprehensive, contemporary twist to the very traditional atelier approach to the methods that instruct artists on the techniques they need to successfully draw and ultimately paint the figure. The book offers art instruction, practical and progressive lessons on drawing the figure, and high-quality sketchbook paper in a beautiful package that includes blank pages for sketching and copying. Artists will then have a record of their process, like with a sketchbook, which many artists like to document and save. In this elegant and inspiring workbook, master contemporary artist and author Juliette Aristides breaks down the figure drawing process into small, manageable lessons, presents them progressively, introduces time-tested principles and techniques in the atelier tradition that are easily accessible, and shares the language and context necessary to understand the artistic process and create superior, well-crafted drawings. Atelier education is centered on the belief that working in a studio, not sitting in the lecture hall, is the best way to learn about art. Every artist needs to learn to master figure drawing. Ateliers have produced the greatest artists of all time--and now that educational model is experiencing a renaissance. These studios, a return to classical art training, are based on the nineteenth-century model of teaching artists by pairing them with a master artist over a period of years. Students begin by copying masterworks, then gradually progress to painting as their skills develop. Figure Drawing Atelier is like having an atelier in a book - and the master is Juliette Aristides, a classically trained artist and best-selling art-instruction author with almost rock star popularity in the contemporary world of representational art. On every page, Aristides uses the works of Old Masters and today's most respected realist artists to demonstrate and teach the principles of realistic figure drawing and painting, taking students step by step through the learning curve yet allowing them to work at their own pace. Unique and inspiring, this book offers a serious art course for serious art students and beginners alike.

Genres: Art, Drawing, Reference

128 pages, Hardcover

Published September 17, 2019

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd been drawing for as long as I could hold a pencil/crayon/whatever... you know how it goes... but although I was pretty good I never learnt to draw the right way. (I blame only myself.) Furthermore, I'd stopped drawing for many years due to... distractions. And when I wished I could go back to it I was worried I'd lost what talent I did have and any attempts would result only in frustration. I was afraid to even try.

Enter Juliette. This book taught me how to draw again from the ground up. Beginning with simple shapes, lines and gestures, on through form and finally learning from trying to copy from the masters, as they did the ones before them. This "studio in a book" helped me immensely, both to overcome my fear of failure and to learn and develop the skills I should have done years ago. There's also a bit of philosophy to inspire.

I can't praise this book enough. And if it can teach this old dog new tricks, I imagine it would be invaluable for a new dog, er, artist as well. I am so grateful to this author/artist!

"Time spent drawing is an investment in our lives...It transforms our lives, re-calibrating our vision to see the significant elements hidden in an ordinary day."

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I normally love Juliette's books but this one, not quite as much. I am a proponent of the Bargue system of drawing and measurement, particularly for people who are beginning the route of learning more classical, tried and true methods. The insert of the sort of 70's ideas, in my opinion, count on the person already having a good hand and a good eye. Therefore this is not a book that not something I would suggest for new students or new learners.
Nonetheless, as a secondary drawing course after a student has done a dozen or so Bargue plates this has its use and merit, since by this point an artist in training should be able to see some shapes that are inside of the object that they are executing. Again though, these shapes are not always squares or s shapes, but can be a little like clouds in that there are irregular and regular shapes inside of the topic. I would have liked to see a reference to finding irregular shapes as well.
The book itself is beautiful, beautifully bound in a cover that feels as soft as a baby's skin, and with a built in elastic to mark the spot. Like all her books in this series, the book is a pleasure to hold and to experience. Beautiful really, the book version of well executed classical art.

[Suzanne Conboy-Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a dip-in-dip-out kind of book; I found it invaluable in getting my drawing skills at least lined up if not honed and I will come back to all of them as I progress through my painting degree.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy this!

[Danielle Vasquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not my most favorite book on drawing figures but it's fairly good. what's really good about it is beautiful. The book itself is gorgeous art. it's extremely pleasing to the eye.