50 Ways to Draw Your Beautiful Ordinary Life : : Practical Lessons in Pencil and Paper

Locations
Call Number: 741.2 Sm
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	741.2 Sm	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"Filled with paper goodies! Paper doll fashion sketchbook..mini daily drawing pad, DIY postcards, watercolor, tracing, and colored papers, house interior to unfold and decorate"--Back cover.
"In its innovative magazines and books, Flow celebrates creativity, mindfulness, and the pleasures of paper through a uniquely appealing marriage of ideas and visuals--beautiful illustrations and paintings created by a group of talented professional artists. Now those same artists have opened up their toolkits, sharing secrets, techniques, and point of view to teach the creatively curious how to draw. Here are 50 easy, illustrated step-by-step lessons on how to draw a whimsically curated list of the things we see and interact with every day: a bouquet of flowers, a watering can, a cat, mittens, favorite plants and vegetables, a cup and saucer, a kitchen table, fruit wrappers, a seagull, a dress collar, an apple tree. The lessons take us line by line from early sketch to finished drawing, with space alongside for the reader to draw the same. And unlike other beginner's drawing guides, every lesson stems from each artist's particular sensibility. This book is not about learning shapes, but how to create beautiful images with quirkiness and personality. The focus is not on perspective or shading, but the mindful pleasures of doing creative work."--Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Inspired me to sit and just draw my home and surroundings for several hours...a practical and wonderful book! submitted by esquivea on November 10, 2018, 10:29am The best thing about this book is that encourages one to find beauty in the everyday. Doodling flower pots, teacups, clothes, and people was a lot of fun, and helped me come up with several embroidery designs. My main qualms with this book are that several pages were taken out (like the postcard, so the few pages on DIY postcards were useless), and it includes a lot of cardstock and watercolor paper as well. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to use these--it seemed that a few pages had already been removed--and the paper was so pretty it was really tempting! I would suggest removing the cardstock, watercolor paper, tracing paper, and postcard inserts before putting these books on the shelves or else they'll be dismantled. However, if the intent is for the patron to utilize these materials, I would include a sticker that says as much. Overall, this book is a wonderful resource and I'm considering buying a personal copy so I can make full use of it!

Draw beautiful ordinary life submitted by sara on June 19, 2020, 12:38pm This is a consumable, interactive book. It really makes me want to begin drawing inside and ripping out the pages to follow the drawing prompts inside. (Don’t worry, I didn’t.) You can use your own sketch book and do the exercises, but it might be more fun to own a copy.

Good inspiration but not a lot of instruction submitted by mollykleinman on July 24, 2022, 8:20pm The subtitle of this book — “practical lessons” — made me think it would be more instructional, for someone who is learning to draw. It’s very pretty, with lots of fun ideas, but for example, the page on drawing a bicycle gives a tip for doing the wheels (trace two differently sized glasses to do the inner and outer rims), and then basically says, “now draw a bicycle.” So, if you’re a rank beginner like me, this isn’t a good starting place, but I could see it being fun for people who already know how to draw at least a little.

Adorable submitted by downing on August 6, 2022, 2:07pm The illustrations are so cute and it just feels really fun.