Drawing And Painting People: A Fresh Approach, Emily Ball – Book Review

The title suggests it’s about drawing and painting people and when you look at the table of contents and see there are chapters on drawing the head and the gaze, that backs it up.  But I don’t think this really is about drawing and painting people.  There are people in most of the paintings in the book but not in many of the exercises but this is about a different style of painting.  It’s about throwing away all you learned about proportions and perspectives and realism and just reverting back to the innocence of painting like a pre-school kid.  Some of the paintings in this really don’t look like the work of serious artists.

Was there anything useful in the book?  Well, some of the exercises are probably worth a go.  And the idea of messing about with proportions and moving background elements around is interesting, although if I were to do this, I’d want to do it in a way that ended up looking like it had been painted by someone aged over ten.  I guess the chapter in the gaze was interesting, with its message that getting the gaze right was just as good as achieving a physical likeness – this hit the spot for me as my marker pen drawings often get the gaze but not the likeness.  On the other hand, apart from one of the exercises, I could find little or no useful advice on the gaze.

There was one weird moment, when Emily talked about a painting needing to be a poetic response to the subject rather than a record of what was in front of me, when I almost flipped over from being a disbeliever into believer.  It’s the same feeling I’ve had in the past when I’ve almost become religious.  Weird, weird feeling.  In neither case did I flip over though.

In terms of inspirational paintings, this book was sparse.  I think there were about ten paintings in there that I liked and that used techniques that I might incorporate into my own work.

Look, this book isn’t for everyone.  I read in a review somewhere that anyone thinking of buying it should have a flip through in a book shop first and I agree with this.  I’d go further and recommend that you also read some passages to experience Emily’s writing style.  Some people will love this book, others will hate it.  I can’t see anybody giving this one 2, 3 or 4 palettes: it’s 1 or 5.  I personally didn’t get much from it, and think it was a mistake to put it on my wishlist.  I’m giving it one palette (sorry Emily) but I do suggest that you take a look at it if you see it in a book shop – you may be one of those that love it.

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