The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the Head

A wonderful book for improving drawing technique! This is especially helpful for pros who have used line, (as I used to) This book has helped me tremendously in enhancing my style. Though I don't exclusively use the red pastel pencil Mr. Maughin uses, I modify his techniques to use in pencil, but I will use his technique faithfully when I get a chance to explore how to do it in his original style. If you are patient and commit some time, it's well worth it to learn his methods.

Mr.Maughan gives very user friendly tips on drawing the head. I found his section on Values and Form, Masses of Light and Shadow, The Anatomy of the Eyes and the section on color informative. The book if full of demos that anyone would find helpful when attempting to draw or paint the human head.

“The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the Head” by William L. Maughan

The title says “Complete Guide” and it means it !!!

This is a positive gold mine of information... all very clear and well-presented. But be advised... you won't read this book in 20 minutes; you won't grasp everything in 20 minutes; and you won't read it just once. But if you are determined to take your talent up several notches and are willing to put in the mental sweat equity” to do it, this book will get it done for you regardless of your chosen media(s).

An EXTREMELY valuable feature of this book is that it illustrates and advocates the use of the Chiaroscuro style which (imho) is the best way to produce any art. In a nutshell, Chiaroscuro is the elimination of “boundary” lines by production of the figure via shading and tonal/texture changes. Not only is it a very high level of printed art but it is mandatory for my favorite art form – pyrography (woodburning) – and beautiful for other “3D” art forms eg. Gourd Art etc.

Hi! I am taking classes at the local Community College to develop my artisitic skills after a life as left brain addicted individual. I came accross this book in the local library and extended my checkout time to the max. I found the content to be very helpful and was devastated to return it to the library. So, I went ahead and bought it on the store. Very happy that I did. Would recommend it to all interested! owen

I was so inspired by the particular technique in this drawing book that I purchased the materials specified and got to work doing a very successful portrait following the step by step directions. It was the easiest portrait drawing and my most sucessful ever.KF

Great illustration and instruction for using sanguine couloure!

Book arrived In good condition. Will be making use of this book as I explore a new medium......sanguine conte'.......I am right now a graphite artist.

Pauline Brillant Demers

The book itself was lovely, its contents are truly helpful to both new and experienced artists looking to gain understanding of the portrait and shipping time was awesome! However, the book did come with folds and dents which was unfortunate. But do not let that stop you from buying!!

Maughan's thesis is that by employing a few, easily-understood techniques and materials, his reader will be able to create high-quality portraits. This is true, but it is not, as Maughan seems to think, the only way or even the best way. I am not completely convinced.

The Good,
Very, very good exposition of his theory.
Very good illustrative examples.
Provides a lot of information that will work with any style of portrait drawing

The Bad.
His method is not the only way.
He doesn't talk about the weaknesses of his method
He could have spared the reader the sections on drawing imaginative figures and painting.

Maughan's Artist's Complete Guide to drawing the Head is a hard book to judge.

Maughan puts forth the idea that it is possible to draw the human head using carefully-redered shapes of lighter and darker tone instead of with the traditional method of drawing a line and filling in the shadows. Someone with a sense of humor try to sum up his book with, "Draw the shadows and highlights correctly and blammo! you have a head!"

He calls this method "Chiaroscuro" (Italian for "bright/dark") but he means it in a way that is different from the use of strong contrasts between lit- and unlit areas on human forms that Caravaggio made famous. He means attention to the shapes and tones of the areas of greatest contrast and he does a great job of distilling this into a method with useable, understandable parts.

The book would be fine if Maughan had stopped there, but he doesn't. He goes on to overstate the strength of his method in a way that lessens the real vigor of his opinion.

Maughan looks at drawing as a prelude to painting and the use of shapes of tone to draw as the most effective way of going about it, but at times, his thought seems to go beyond imparting useful ideas to slide into dogma..

At times, he seems to equate the side of the point with wisdom and virtue in a way that is just plain annoying if you've had an art history class, or to atelier-style, classical drawing techniques (with their obsessive attention to searching clarity and deadly accuracy) that you find in other books.

He doesn't say, "this is just one way of drawing faces," and her certainly never tells his audience that the way he wants them to draw ONLY works on toned paper that does all the heavy lifting and that it would be close to useless on white, or that his method would simply stop functioning without the subject's sitting in perfect portrait lighting, or that, if he is right, both Kaethe Kolwittz and J.A.D. Ingres, have a lot of explaining to do.

Despite the above, I still found The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the Head a positive, and enlightening use of my time spent in the pursuit of draftsmanship.

The book is a little long, and Maughan runs out of material about midway through, but his way of looking at things definitely works to create in the reader a different way of looking at the relationship of light and shadow on the human face but at the end of the day, Maughan is talking about a method of drawing and not *the* method.

This book should be bought and used, but only in conjunction with other books that give the exact opposite advice that Maughan does.

Honestly, this is one of those books that shows you the same picture over and over again and it just gives you steps on how they got to the final image. They don't really explain to placement and head structure or break down any details. It's really based on style and it's kind of correct but it's still not what I was expecting.

I expected another thing, the quality of the book is nice, but the content is to simple, I spected more excercises to lear draw realistics heads. It has a lot of theory to learn, but, because i like to draw, i expected more draw and examples.

When purchasing this book, I expected a guide to drawing the head. Instead, I got a guide to properly shading facial features. This book didn't help me at all!!! If you truly want to learn how to draw the head (proportionately), I'd recommend an Andrew Loomis book

I have collected a great many drawing books to help kick-start my drawing projects. All of them are good, but most are redundant. I have found Lee Hammond's Big Book of Drawing to be the best all-round drawing resource. Most of the others sit gathering dust until I refer to them. Usually the Lee Hammond book is all I need.

I finished reading this book and was very impressed with the candidness and knowledge of the author.

When I finished the chapter on the head, at first I was a little disappointed because it did not go into any great detail. But at the end of that chapter he explained why. His whole philosophy is to not get caught up in the standard way of drawing. Many of us look for that "cookie cutter" type of tutorial lessons. His thing is use your eyes to draw. If you draw from memory (i.e standard egg shaped head) all the time you will fall victim of the type of art where every one of your characters shares a resemblance. His thing is to draw very light the gesture of the persons face and head and run through the rest of his steps outlined in the book.

I like how the book is written because it puts you in the mind frame of getting personal tips from an established artist. The style of chiaroscuro and sfumato is stressed in his book and I personally think those are the techniques that really gets the compliments from viewers. You will amaze people with your work just studying and applying those two techniques.

I agree with other reviewers' praise for this book; not only is it a sound guide to particularities of face portraits, but it is one of the best general drawing books I've seen for someone who has some experience but is struggling with modeling forms realistically. I would kill for an equally clear and careful introduction to charcoal landscapes. One minor criticism: the book should end on p. 121. Everything thereafter is of no use whatsoever to the main purpose of the book.

Maughan's approach, while eventually applicable to, say, charcoal drawing on white paper, sticks very narrowly to red and white chalk drawings on toned paper (a very traditional technique: aux deux crayons, le matite rossa e nera). I think this is an effective pedagogical choice, and readers will benefit from following it. Maughan's version of this is to use CarbOthello "pastel" pencils in the colors red caput mortuum (not martuum as Maughan consistently misspells it) and titanium white.

Well, as I say, the lessons depend on the materials, and it's always fun to buy the materials for a new book you plan on taking seriously, so my whole motivation in writing this review is to share a discovery, which is that the ideal pencil for Maughan's requirements is actually Koh-i-noor's La Gioconda Red Chalk Pencil (widely available from good art suppliers). It's the same color and material (more or less) as the CarbOthello caput mortuum red but allows so much more and easier tonal control, from very dark to whisper-soft. (I actually ordered half a dozen of the CarbOthellos before I found out that the single La Gioconda I had sitting around was a better version of the same.)

I took classes with William Maughan, several of them in fact and I need to set the record straight. This is the best drawing instruction book I have ever read. It will give you fundamental and instinctive understanding of techniques that can carry over to any medium (that includes oil and pastel and graphite). Your people will never look like aliens again, they will be shockingly realistic (if you want that) or effectively abstracted (if you want that). It's just a shame that Bills humor and approachability doesn't come through in the text, but all the info is there.

In this book you will learn:

An extraordinarily simple and instinctive understanding of how shadows really work. Chiurascuro is a fancy word for how shadow forms are shaped and he'll teach you how to see it and render it. This is the secret to realistic drawing.

How value works. Value is really just how dark or light something is, but there is a logic to it that ties into painting and drawing. You will also draw MUCH faster with more convincing results. The curious color of paper and charcoal Bill uses in this book simplifies values to become easier to render, instead of ten shades of darkness he compresses it to five, thus making it easier for you to understand. From there you can apply it to white paper or canvas and any color medium you want. All tools he teaches you to use here are instinctive and excellent.

The proper proportions for the head and face no matter the sex, age, or ethnicity of the subject.

An incredibly fast, effective, and instinctive drawing technique that WILL translate into other media and other subjects.

Sincerely, these are the core fundamentals. These are techniques rarely taught in school or presented in books. There is no perfect, all encompasing art book, but this one teaches fundamentals the self taught rarely understand. Bills techniques changed my life, the book has those techniques and teaches them in an extremely streamlined manner. I wish I had this book fifteen years ago....

This is an excellent book on drawing portraits. Yes, it does not cover every angle and does not cover a variety of media. However, those are minor limitations.

The whole premise of this book is that drawing shadow shapes accurately and expressively produces great portraits. I am self-taught and it is THE book that made a difference in my approach to portrait drawing, and drawing in general.

The author focuses on key aspects of rendering the head beginning with gesture. Then he addresses different features--eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and hair, with useful tips for each. Once you have developed your seeing and rendering skills, you should be able to draw the head from any angle. The author correctly does not focus on this. It will come naturally.

He also provides tips for using color. Again, once you know the basics about shapes, values, etc, you should be able to render these in any medium. Finally, the hybrid animal/human drawings are included simply to make the point that any face can be constructed once you have mastered the basics.

All in all one of the best art instruction books ever. I would go so far as to say that I do not need to read another book on portraiture after this one. It has been that good for me.

Altho I have been drawing and painting for years, I have never tried portraits. It just so happened that I am taking a class using this method. I have found it to be good for me as a beginner of portraits. Mr. Maughan teaches you to see shadow and light and teaches each phase of portrait drawing step by step. Very expressive and easy to understnd instruction.

William Maughan's book "Drawing the Head" is worth buying just for the illustrations alone. But, it is also a fundamentally sound guide as to how to achieve likeness in a realistic albeit artistic fashion. It looks so easy but, that is, often the case with art instruction books. In fact, the steps that Maughan clearly sets out i.e. gesture, proportions,shadow shapes,edge control and detail, are each mountains that have to climbed until, that glorious day when we hope everything comes together. And even then we will still be starting out. This book is a truly informative guide as to what mountains have to be climbed. The student will, however, have to provide the effort and do the climbing. The didactic way in which the examples are coupled to the text is commendable and a joy to follow, the drawings inspiring. The student is educated on materials and how to use them. An unexpected but thrilling chapter on creating aliens out of yourself or friends is wonderful. If only the last chapter on colour could have been extended to show more clearly how some of those effects were rendered. But, I think, thats just me being greedy for more from this gifted and distinguished artist. Buy the book and if you can tear yourself away from wondering at the illustrations, get on and use it. That's what its for.Your bound to become better.

A teacher of 30 years experience, William Maughan encourages the reader to move beyond linear drawing of the head to a value (chiarscuro) oriented approach. The book is well written and illustrated with the authors beautful drawings. I've been drawing regularly for over 10 years now as a discipline for my painting and I have adopted this book as my text for advancement. Well worth purchasing.

This book is truely a masterpiece in art instruction. It carefully and fully explains perspective when drawing the human head. It is well written- altho at times tends to be rather hard to understand the meaning but with help of excellent examples it does become clear. Would recomend that this book be purchased by anyone wanting to learn to draw the human head. Don't purchase any other books until you have gotten this book.

Hi! I am taking classes at the local Community College to develop my artisitic skills after a life as left brain addicted individual. I came accross this book in the local library and extended my checkout time to the max. I found the content to be very helpful and was devastated to return it to the library. So, I went ahead and bought it on the store. Very happy that I did. Would recommend it to all interested! owen

I always review the sample before buying.This sample was one of the worst I've ever seen, consisting of only the table of contents. Completely useless. If the sample is expanded to include a bit of the actual material, I'll revise this review. Such a disappointment since I'm pretty sure this book would have been a helpful guide.

This is a great book! My drawing improved tremendously after applying the techniques described. Would highly recommend to anyone that has basic drawing skills and wants to take their art to the next level.

This book is extermely well written and very easy to understand.It can be used by the beginner as well as the professional.The author gives many useful tips that can be applied to many phases of art work