Kimon Nicolaides (1891–1938)

In the Introduction, Nicolaides states, "As the exercises are described, it is assumed that a nude model is available."

This is not a casual "Learn to Draw" type of book, but is meant as an intensive, three-or-four-hours-a-day-for-a-year type of instruction. From what I gather, it is meant to be a reproduction of his in-person class. Almost every exercise starts with "The model is asked...."

You could definitely take some of the exercises and adapt them for use without a live model, and he show more even speaks to this: "You will find that, with a few exceptions, the exercises apply just as much to things as to people."

There are some great nuggets in this book, and it is a classic for a reason. But perhaps a bit much for people who are not actively enrolled in art school. show less

"The awareness of unity must be first and must be continuous."

The book is (or perhaps was) one of the first books to be recommended to serious art students who were studying on their own. I can’t remember where it was recommended to me, some art forum I suspect. I was going to follow it word for word, but I quickly got impatient and instead was given an overview into creative process by a purist. You can scoff, but I think Nikolaïdes’s words are worth reading.

Each exercise directed show more it’s student to follow a set course, drawing for 3 hours and sometimes for 20 minutes several times a day, which I flagrantly disregarded. However, I liked the way he wrote about drawing and being an artist, and I found myself underlining words that lent themselves very well to the writing process as well.

Section one wanted us to put ourselves in the models shoes and observe life as it is. Look at life, not the paper!

Sometimes we get so caught up in craft and study that we forget that all of us, from non-fiction to fantasy, are seeking a kernel of truth to carry our conceit beyond the paper and into our reader’s hearts.

I wonder if anyone would make a video or essay based on this book… I’ll put it on my to-do list. show less

A helpful guide to drawing that I got quite a lot of good advice out of, things I'm now using nearly every time I draw. It gives a lot of good tips on all kinds of different art formats, and has a very in-depth daily course format. For anyone looking to jump right into art, it's a reasonably good book that encourages you to keep going at it.

I found this more difficult to follow than Edwards's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, but I think if I had persisted with it, the rewards would have been greater. Nicolaides's approach encourages observations of movement, as well as the posed or stationary subject.