developing drawing skills

[vadim_k]

Well this is my first post over here so i guess i will introduce myself
my name is Vadim .K. Born in russia living in israel
i am almost 19 year old i finished my 12 years of highschool and now i am in my 1st out of 3 years in the army and
i am the leader and founder of WwW.MrJoka.Com

anyway
i am a real big fan of drawing, animation and caricaturing i am trying to learn it as well as i can i read a several of books in the subject but i would like some help as i don`t know what else can i read because i am in the army i do not have time to go to any course or classes even though i do have time to read books and practice after i finish the army i am planing to move to canada and start studying there because this is what i want to do in my life anyway (again) what books would you suggest me to read

[Datameister]

Books are helpful, but there really is no substitute for drawing a lot. Draw everything around you, using careful and painstaking observation. Anyone know of some books to help him out?

[Storyboard Dave]

I guess the best book I can suggest at this point is the sketch book.

There are so many books out there as to art instruction, it's really difficult to say which is better. I always try to look inward and see what art I like and then get a few of those. Study them and find out what makes it so appealing to me. If you like caricatures, then get books about people who do caricatures and study them as opposed to instructional books on doing caricatures. That's not to say that instrcutional books aren't good but right now your likes & dislikes come into making you your own artist.

Draw what you see is by far the best thing any artist can do. And while we can both be staring at the same model, bowl of fruit or whatever, we're going to interpret it differently because of our own different backgrounds, likes & dislikes. Keep drawing and developing your own niche.

[MacGyver]

Just google/wikipedia any terms you don't understand.

A bowl of fruit is a bowl of fruit. I believe the best drawing skill to look forward to would be naturalistic. Naturalistic art goes into such fine detail of realistic representation that an artist who masters it becomes aware of their natural surroundings. This is what I consider close to real life drawing.

Yet naturalistic art can take some time of getting use to, that's why most artists have to learn about the anatomy and physiology (the structure of a human) so that you will be able to grasp the stance of someone in finer detail. Leonardo Da Vinci was a master at discovering A&P.

Research some of the really old artists. Learning about art and then doing art will help guide you into understanding what type of art you are doing. Sure, you may see it as drawing, but is it abstract? Abstract expressionism? Naturalistic?

There are a lot of threads on this website that will help teach you and guide you to where you need to go to learn. Sit down for a few hours and search.

If you would like to view what other people think of some drawing books, there is a website I'd like to inform you of incase you've never been to it: Amazon.com

Amazon.com is a bookstore which has user-reviews of books from different genres. Drawing, painting, clothing, etc.

Simply search for a term such as: "Drawing caricatures"