| GO SHOPPING |
|
Keys to Drawing with Imagination Bert Dodson is the author of the best-selling book Keys to Drawing (Reprint Edition ©©1990). In that book, Dodson shared his complete drawing system designed to teach anyone to draw any subject with total confidence. Thousands of people have found his 55 "keys" and dozens of exercises just the instruction and insight they needed to start drawing. In Keys to Drawing with Imagination, Dodson turns his attention to the creative process with fun techniques and exercises that will help readers draw more imaginatively than ever before. Dodson rightly suggests that many people think of imagination and creativity as something that you have rather than something you do. You can't be creative until you are actively engaged in the art-making process. This idea is succinctly stated in Dodson's first creative principle: "creativity occurs in action." Seven additional creative principles are presented in the introduction, including this seemingly counter-intuitive gem, "creativity likes constraints and specifics." These eight creative principles, and Dodson's explanation of them, are in themselves worth the price of the book. The heart of the book, Dodson tells us, is the concept of generating and transforming. He begins with an original sketch or doodle and then experiments with different ideas for transforming that sketch. The book's 37 exercises suggest ideas for transforming doodles into unique, extremely creative drawings. Silhouetting, shading, multiplying, mirror imaging, odd juxtapositions, an immersion are just some of the many fascinating ideas presented. This is a book that artists of all ages and skill levels will certainly benefit from. At first glance it would appear to be skewed toward older artists, but the exercises seem ideally suited to school-aged children because they encourage the truly creative type of drawing that children already do naturally.
|