I've heard that this is an excellent textbook and I've been thinking about purchasing it. Does anyone here own this book? If so, could you tell me if the author, Brian Curtis, explains or gives any advice on drawing from "memory" in the book? Thanks.

I looked it up for you could read the reviews at this link that may help



http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Observation-...s/dp/0072410248

I don't know this book Metroid, but believe that observational drawing and drawing from memory are very different things so don't know if this book would be useful or not. You might like to study some other artists who have worked predominantly from memory. Raymond Briggs being one of them. http://magicpencil.britishcouncil.org/artists/briggs/

I believe that to draw from memory, you need to have a VERY good knowledge of the object that you are drawing so that you can recreate it without seeing it or referring to an image. Observational of course means really seeing the object that you are drawing, not as an object, but more as a series of shapes, lines, light and shade.

For either method, it takes years of practice to achieve a good level of technical skill and the best way to do that is keep drawing, daily, constantly, for years and years.

Thanks for the links and help, guys. I really appreciate it. I'll be sure to check out both websites. 'Till later.

MetroidKiller,

Thank you for mentioning that you have heard good things about Drawing from Observation.

This book is currently used in over 250 colleges, art schools, and universities in the US. It was recently published in Singapore after being translated into short-form Chinese.

Drawing from Observation focuses on the techniques of perceptual drawing and the related theory underlying the translation of 3-D space to the two dimensional drawing surface. While a substantial amount of the text is devoted to drawing directly from observation, there are two important chapters (foreshortened circles and biomorphic form) that are based primarily in applying volumetric principles to drawing from imagination. While this is not exactly the same as drawing from memory I do believe that it shares a lot with that process.

You can view 10 page spreads from Drawing from Observation at:

Drawing from Observation page spreads

Good luck with your drawing from memory.