This book is so amazing. <3

"The awareness of unity must be first and must be continuous."

The book is (or perhaps was) one of the first books to be recommended to serious art students who were studying on their own. I can’t remember where it was recommended to me, some art forum I suspect. I was going to follow it word for word, but I quickly got impatient and instead was given an overview into creative process by a purist. You can scoff, but I think Nikolaïdes’s words are worth reading.

Each exercise directed it’s student to follow a set course, drawing for 3 hours and sometimes for 20 minutes several times a day, which I flagrantly disregarded. However, I liked the way he wrote about drawing and being an artist, and I found myself underlining words that lent themselves very well to the writing process as well.

Section one wanted us to put ourselves in the models shoes and observe life as it is. Look at life, not the paper!

Sometimes we get so caught up in craft and study that we forget that all of us, from non-fiction to fantasy, are seeking a kernel of truth to carry our conceit beyond the paper and into our reader’s hearts.

I wonder if anyone would make a video or essay based on this book… I’ll put it on my to-do list.

'The supreme misfortune is when theory outstrips performance.' - Leonardo da Vinci

An excerpt from the Introduction

The job of the teacher, as I see it, is to teach students, not how to draw, but how to learn to draw. They must acquire some real method of finding out facts for themselves lest they be limited for the rest of their lives to facts the instructor relates. They must discover something of the true nature of artistic creation—of the hidden processes by which inspiration works.
The knowledge—what is to be known about art—is common property. It is in many books. What the teacher can do is to point out the road that leads to accomplishment and try to persuade his students to take that road. This cannot be a matter of mere formula.
My whole method consists of enabling students to have an experience. I try to plan for them things to do, things to think about, contacts to make. When they have had that experience well and deeply, it is possible to point out what it is and why it has brought these results.
[...]
Man can only make the rules. He cannot make the laws, which are the laws of nature. It is an understanding of these laws that enables a student to draw. His difficulty will never be a lack of ability to draw, but lack of understanding.
Art should be concerned more with life than with art. When we use numbers we are using symbols, and it is only when we transfer them to life that they become actualities. The same is true with rules of drawing and painting. They are to be learned, not as rules, but as actualities. Then the rules become appropriate.

A well written book. Enjoyed reading it.

this is the first time for me to read, so i promise after i read this book i will give my opinion about this book.please let me read this book, l really interest with this book, i really interest with art. thank you

I have had this book for years. I really is the best book you could use to learn to draw life. Despite being out of life drawing classes, I continue to turn to this book. It's a great resource to reference, it's not a sit-down read.

Everything would have been great but I quote from the very incipit, from the section called "How to use this book" where Kimon says:

"Begin your first day's work by reading the first section until you come to the direction that you are to draw for three hours based on Schedule 1A then STOP AND DRAW."

OK.

But the instruction doesn't exist.

I see Schedule 1A quite soon after this sentence, there are a couple of explanatory pages regarding the task but.... there is no direction to begin drawing. The text simply continues with the second subchapter and task - so I'm not entirely sure when am I to do the actual stopping of the reading and the actual drawing.

Instructions unclear, ended up having a breakdown.

As it is, in the HowToUse section, Kimon explains that he structured this so it would be helpful to people who don't have a proper Art education, but this is very much not the case: he talks a lot about blind contours (which is drawing without looking at the paper), this isn't something to throw at a student and not expect disaster simply because people who are trying to learn to draw are not interested in pretending that scribbles are art.

These types of wild pseudo-educational notions remind me of my very-much-still-in-her-heart-communist History teacher from highschool who had a fetish with making us stand with our backs to an old, mouldy map and point at Constantinople without peeking at it.

I read threw the book but, did not do the exercises. I have read this book before and did a few of the exercises. The last time I read the book I enjoyed the contour drawing. I like looking at an object and not at the paper. That was fun. Maybe I will read the book again and the next time do as many of the exercises at I can.

Excellent

Brilliant, but not for beginners.


"Drawing depends on seeing. Seeing depends on knowing. Knowing comes form a constant effort to encompass reality with all of your senses, all that is you. You are never to be concerned with appearances to an extent which prevents reality of content. It is necessary to rid yourself of the tyranny of the object as it appears. The quality of absoluteness, the note of authority, that the artist depends upon a more complete understanding than the eyes alone can give. to what the eye can see the artist adds feeling and thought. He can if he wishes, relate for us the adventures of his soul in the midst of life." -Kimon Nicolaides

This book helped me a lot since it has many exercises to learn to draw since I am a beginner.

One of the greatest artists i know.. has recommended this book.. and i feel excited to start reading and practicing :)