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It's never too early too late or early to start learning the finer points of your favorite form of art. Dover's Art Instruction books can help beginners and experienced artists alike to express themselves in new and interesting media.
To browse titles selected by artist and author James Gurney as a "Survival Guide for Art Students", click here.
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Recommendations... Composition: Understanding Line, Notan and Color
by Arthur Wesley Dow
Focusing on harmonic relations between lines, color, and dark and light patterns, this manual influenced generations of artists. Practical and well-illustrated, it conveys its insights in a convenient workbook format.
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 Drawing the Head: Four Classic Instructional Guides
by Walter T. Foster
This comprehensive guide by a noted illustrator features instructions for charcoal, crayon, and pencil illustrations. Its step-by-step drawings offer helpful comments for creating portraits of a variety of ages and ethnic types.
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| |  Anatomy and Construction of the Human Figure
by Charles Earl Bradbury
Two-part treatment illustrates portrayal of bones and muscles with numerous color plates, plus more than 100 diagrams show simple methods of building forms. Excellent for classroom and reference.
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 How to Draw Animals
by Charles Liedl
Written by a renowned animal illustrator, this guidebook teems with over 100 illustrations of wild and domestic breeds: horses, deer, geese, dogs, cats, rabbits, foxes, zebras, wolves, bears, tigers, and more.
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| |  Composition in Landscape and Still Life
by Ernest W. Watson
Highlighting the works of nearly 100 master painters, Watson points out that while an artist's skill is important, a painting's true power lies in its arrangement, design, and theme. 135 paintings.
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Products in Art Instruction | | | | |  | Abstract Design and How to Create It
by Amor Fenn
Profusely illustrated guide covers geometric basis of design, implements and their use, borders, textile patterns, nature study, and treatment. Over 380 illustrations include historical examples from many cultures and periods.
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|  | Abstraction in Art and Nature
by Nathan Cabot Hale
Stimulating, thought-provoking guide to finding rich sources of creative abstraction in lines of growth and structure, water and liquid forms, weather patterns, earth colors, many other natural elements. Over 370 photographs and other illustrations.
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|  | Acrylic Watercolor Painting
by Wendon Blake
Excellent step-by-step coverage of painting surfaces, colors, and mediums as well as basic techniques: washes, wet-in-wet, drybrush, more. 75 paintings demonstrate extraordinary variety of techniques. 126 illustrations, including 21 in full color.
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|  | Anatomical Diagrams for Art Students
by James M. Dunlop
This indispensable reference focuses on the skeleton's impact on external form and attachments of the muscular system. Over 70 accurate illustrations cover neck, head, trunk, limbs, hand, foot, and face.
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| | Anatomy and Construction of the Human Figure
by Charles Earl Bradbury
Two-part treatment illustrates portrayal of bones and muscles with numerous color plates, plus more than 100 diagrams show simple methods of building forms. Excellent for classroom and reference.
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|  | Anatomy and Drawing
by Victor Perard
Excellent line drawings and annotations of anatomical structure provide the beginning artist with just about everything one needs to know about drawing all parts of the human anatomy. 179 black-and-white illustrations.
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|  | Anatomy and Perspective: The Fundamentals of Figure Drawing
by Charles Oliver
Clearly and concisely written book covers two subjects seldom treated thoroughly in the same volume. Demonstrations of figure drawing include the use of such simple forms as the cube, cylinder, and sphere. 96 black-and-white figures.
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|  | Animal Drawing and Anatomy
by Edwin Noble
Written and illustrated by a distinguished artist and art instructor, this volume features valuable insights into reproducing accurate images of horses, cows, dogs, sheep, birds, and wild animals. 233 drawings.
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|  | Animal Sketching
by Alexander Calder
Undisputed master of the simple expressive line. 141 full body sketches and enlarged details of animals in characteristic poses and movements. Calder covers cats, dogs, the elephant, birds, monkeys, and more.
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|  | Animal Sketching for Beginners
by Len A. Doust
Empowering and enlightening, this handy little book provides the confidence, insight, and guidance to help any sketcher create realistic animal drawings. 31 illustrations.
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|  | The Art and Technique of Pen Drawing
by G. Montague Ellwood
Excellent reference describes line technique; drawing the figure, face, and hands; humorous illustration; pen drawing for advertisers; landscape and architectural illustration. Drawings by Dürer, Holbein, Doré, Rackham, Beardsley, Klinger, more. 161 figures.
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|  | The Art of Animal Drawing: Construction, Action Analysis, Caricature
by Ken Hultgren
Former Disney animator offers expert advice, with over 700 illustrations, on drawing dogs, cats, deer, foxes, rabbits, more. Line, brush technique, mood, action, more.
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|  | The Art of Cartooning
by Roy Paul Nelson
Tips for using proper tools and techniques; suggestions for drawing the human figure, animals, and backgrounds; how to create comic strips and editorial cartoons. 75 illustrations.
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|  | The Art of Etching
by E.S. Lumsden
An expert traces every step in the creation of etchings, from essential materials to completed proof, and presents a rich historical survey of the art. 200 figures and annotated plates.
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|  | The Art of Painting and Drawing Animals
by Fredric Sweney
Practical guide makes it easier for beginners as well as advanced artists to paint everything from dogs, cats, and deer to birds, sheep, and goats. 236 black-and-white illustrations, 26 in color.
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|  | The Art of Three-Dimensional Design
by Louis Wolchonok
Profusely illustrated guide shows how basic shapes and surfaces — plane, prismatic, cylindric, conical, spherical, more — can be adapted and combined to create hundreds of new designs. Over 100 illustrations.
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|  | The Artistic Anatomy of Trees
by Rex V. Cole
Covers every aspect of trees and how to depict them: balancing tree groups, relationship of light and shade, delicacy and weight, distance, tree color, and more. 515 illustrations.
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|  | Basic Drawing
by Louis Priscilla
Beginning with perspective, this commonsense manual progresses to the figure in movement, light and shade, anatomy, drapery, composition, trees and landscape, and outdoor sketching. Black-and-white illustrations throughout.
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