Art of Drawing & Painting Portraits: Create realistic heads, faces & features in pencil, pastel, watercolor, oil & acrylic (Collector's Series)

I found this book really helped me with my sketching. I had just started sketching when I bought it and found it a really useful reference. So far I've only done graphite work, but I'm soon going to tackle colour work and will definitely be referring to this when I do.

Really interesting write up on how to be a good artist and this book illustrations are on point very informative and helpful for a budding artist

good reference book

I liked this book but I would have liked a little more depth to the tutorials. We know the writers can paint and draw and they illustrate that very well but there are problems for novices, which they do not seem to appreciate. I would have liked a few more basics I guess.

Love this book! Glad I ordered it!! A very detail guide to drawing and painting portraits. Decent illustrations and colour photographs of portraits in all mediums.

I used it as a tutorial which is exactly what it is. Its very good.

I love this book! If you only buy one book on portraiture, this is the one. I have wasted so much time and money on others. This books covers pencils, pastels, watercolour, oils and acrylic. It is not a 'copy the paintings' the artist has done kind of book - although, there are some projects at the end of the book. It is far more useful than that. I've wanted to do portraiture in a variety of media for a while. With this book, I really feel I am gaining new knowledge and look forward to putting it into practise. Each section is written by a different artist, all of whom clearly know what they are talking about. Honestly, buy it!

I waited for my wife to read this as she is the real 'artist' in the family and as she has started doing portraits we both thought that this would be a good book for advice. In the main it is and it is well worth having in your collection. My wife used to paint in water colours but for the last 4 or 5 years has used acrylics. Although mention is given to acrylics it does not give a step by step guide as it does with water colour. However, the technique of layering is very useful and well described and in my view can be used with more or less any medium. Certainly I have no regrets in obtaining this gift for my wife.