The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the Head Paperback – January 1, 2004

As a previous reviewer has noted, the title of this book is a bit misleading- it's not a "complete" guide to drawing the head. It really has a rather narrow focus: it concentrates on drawing three-quarter view portraits with (if you follow Maugham's instruction precisely) using two particular colors of pastel pencil on shaded drawing paper. In addition to his specific materials and subjects, Maughan concentrates on teaching chiaroscuro (use of light and shadow to depict form) in a "classical realist" style. However, for what the book really does, it does quite well. Keeping a narrow focus in a drawing instruction book is a virtue. Many drawing books (and I have a lot, since I've been trying to teach myself) try to cover far too much. They try to summarize in a page or two each of the different drawing mediums (pastel, charcoal, pencil, pen, etc.) and different elements of drawing (line, tone, etc.) while not giving you enough depth or detail about any one thing to learn much that's useful. Maughan, though, sticks to his central focus, describes the basic principles of chiaroscuro in an understandable manner, breaks down his drawing process into basic steps, and provides more demonstrations and detail than most books of this sort. The best evidence I can give in its favor is that my drawing immediately improved after I read this book and started practicing its techniques (even though I've mostly been using pencil rather pastel, so you don't have to precisely follow Maughan's recommendations).Overall, it's one of the clearest and most useful drawing instruction books that I've seen. It's not really an ideal book for people just taking the first steps in learning to draw realistic portraits (for absolute beginners I would still recommend Betty Edwards' flawed but effective "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"). It doesn't have much depth on some of the things that beginners need to learn, such as judging proportion. However, it's a good book to use early in your drawing career.

This is by far the best book on drawing I’ve ever read, and I’ve read many. The author teaches you something more important than how to draw - he teaches you how to see as an artist. He teaches you how to see shapes more clearly through the filter of chiaroscuro. When you accurately identify the lights and darks of your subject and break it break down to just five values - darkest darks, reflected light, halftone, and highlights - your drawing automatically becomes more realistic and convincing. I love the author’s step-by-step demonstrations and easy to follow text. If you are looking for a systematic method that simplifies the process of drawing and helps you improve your artwork immediately, this is the book.

This book was exactly what I needed at this point in time in my artistic life. I was struggling with shadow theory vs actually seeing it and rendering it in a believable way. My portrait skills had been improving, but they still looked slightly cartoonish and caricature is not what I was going for. It's a lifetime of practice and study for sure. But this book helped me recognize some of what I was struggling to see. Not for everyone's style for sure. And I certainly do not agree it's the complete guide or the only way! But it was exactly where I wanted my work to go. But I'm a fan of the loomis method which he refers to in the beginning... one point is that I tried but do not like the particular paper he suggests and I couldn't find the color anywhere and belive it's no longer produced. So just use what you love in a tone that makes sense. I do however love the stabilo pencils nearly as much as I love conte crayons/sticks, and they are definitely easier to sharpen than conte pencils! Of which I have a love hate relationship. So that was a lovely new find. The content is good. I wish he'd shown more than the 3/4 style view. But overall it was the nudge to understanding facial shadows that i needed to keep developing as an artist and was worth the money for me.

Let's get this first out of the way, this is a great book and I really believe it should be part of any realist artist's library. The author is quite knowledgable and he does share very useful best practices and what to watch for. Like any good teacher, he keeps driving the points home, over and over, to make sure that best practices are not missed.I would like to comment on three different aspects regarding this book.First, this is not a beginner's book. I'm not sure I'd agree that the subject is drawing the head actually. There are so many other books that address drawing the head more thoroughly, which includes anatomical coverage, different construction methods, and proportions. I personally bought this book to learn how to draw Chiaroscuro (light and dark) correctly and how to get that renaissance-like feel in my sketches and drawings. The book does not disappoint, it has great instructions and many examples to follow.The second point is about tools recommendations. Make sure you are comfortable with CarbOthello #645, otherwise, just use a pencil that provides Sanguine tone that you are comfortable with. My own experience is that CarbOthello #645 is not that easy to master, there's a learning curve.Now, here's why I didn't give this book 5 stars and was tempted to give it 3 actually, even though that I love this book! The entire book and all the examples in have already solved the most important step 0. In other words, there is not a single actual photograph of a model of any of the finished drawings. This is a serious drawback for me. Drawing is seeing in the first place, and few examples of actual photos showing how to separate the light from shadows, and more importantly, driving the point of how to accurately define the shadow shapes (and negative spaces) is missing. Each example has already solved that important first step.