Recent Reads: Perspective in Action by David Chelsea

Source: From Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review. This in no way alters my opinion or review.

Perspective in Action by David Chelsea
Publisher: Watson-Guptill
Publication Date:   June 20, 2017

 

Format:  Paperback


Rating:


 




Goodreads Synopsis: 

Using the graphic novel format, Perspective in Action features 33easy-to-follow demonstrations to teach the major discoveries in perspective. Perspective is a fundamental element in the development of art and for understanding spatial relationships, but it is an underserved topic in the world of art instruction. Author and artist David Chelsea takes readers through the major perspective-related developments in history, teaching them how to re-create these same experiments by leading artists in all fields (including drawing, painting, and sculpture). Covering a wide-range of mediums (pen and ink, paint, chalk, digital art, woodwork, and more), Perspective in Action gives readers a more hands-on approach to perspective, as opposed to the usual theoretical presentations found in other books."

 Review: 
It has been a long time since I have been in an art class and I was excited to see this book as an option to review - I have been trying to get back into drawing lately and felt like a  refresher was due. I have always been pretty terrible with perspective if I am not actively using it in drawing and I understand the concept and have even been ok at it in the past after a lesson or two. This book, while it is a wonderful way of presenting the information might just have been past my level of comprehension. I understood a good amount of if but once I was lost, I was long-gone. However the book did make up for my lack of ability with some other fun things.

This art book is not like any I have used in the past, it is in a graphic novel format, so loads of pictures and instructions, it is also a history of sorts as well. The book breaks down a bunch of different ways older artists might have used perspective and the techniques they used to 'cheat the system'. I enjoyed reading about those and then seeing the modern adaptations of them. While I was not able to try any yet, I think they could be very fun to play with when I have the time and materials available.

Overall, this was a very interesting art book, there was a lot of great informative information but perspective is a hard one to fully grasp and sometimes it takes not only a book but a demonstration - art is hands on so that is what I think was missing for me here.