Lessons In Masterful Portrait Drawing

Open Preview

See a Problem?

We'd love your help. Let us know what's wrong with this preview of Lessons in Masterful Portrait Drawing by Mau-Kun Yim.

Thanks for telling us about the problem.

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

Be the first to ask a question about Lessons in Masterful Portrait Drawing

Community Reviews

really liked it Average rating 4.00 ·

· 45 ratings · 8 reviews

Start your review of Lessons in Masterful Portrait Drawing: A Classical Approach to Drawing the Head

Dec 17, 2018 Castles rated it liked it

Although the author is an amazing artist, it is a rather specific style and language that he has. That being said, his approach is classic and excellent. I appreciated his philosophy on drawings busts and constructing the face. A very good book.

Jan 15, 2018 Joli Hamilton rated it really liked it

I'm incredibly impressed by the contents of the book and expect my figure drawing will improve for having read it. I took off one star only for the lack of instruction around several key activities like where and how to engage with busy drawing and why the author seems to prefer drawing large scale. Also he is petulantly aggressive towards the photorealistic artists which seems silly. Different art goals can coexist.

"Lessons in Masterful Portrait Drawing" is an excellent book for those interested in pursuing the portraiture art form. The book is focused on pencil drawing, though the techniques could be somewhat adapted towards painting. It touches on several important topics, though none of them are deeply covered.

Although not a definitive book on the subject matter, there is a lot of different types of examples including people and statues. There are some "step by step" examples, but there are so few exa

Although not a definitive book on the subject matter, there is a lot of different types of examples including people and statues. There are some "step by step" examples, but there are so few examples that the process can't seriously be considered a tutorial, it's more of a guide. This is a common occurrence with books of this type, as now with the advent of YouTube and DVD's, visual, real time tutelage is more to be expected, as well as demanded.

The main problem with the book is that the author's work is heavily stylized and may not be something that you find helpful for your studies or for that matter, to your liking.

Overall, this is a good book for the aspiring portrait artist and will keep them happy until they come upon a better one.

...more

Oct 03, 2019 T C rated it it was ok

The "How to Draw and Owl" of portrait books. 2 stars only for the masterful drawings that if you stare at long enough you can glean some information from but the basics of the books are covered on youtube videos you can get for free and it doesnt do much beyond that.

The book shows a progression for how to draw a head but with very little in the way on how to get there. The progression from simple block-in to the later shading is so far apart that I can't see this book benefiting anyone who isn'

But if you just want a book filled with masterful portraiture to learn from Sargent has his books as well.

...more

Jan 22, 2021 Deanna rated it really liked it

Beautiful Book and a great tool for beginner portrait artists.

Dec 15, 2019 Desollado rated it it was amazing

As with many of this kind of books, only few pages are actually usefull text. In this case its few usefull pages contain some of the most useful and original advices.

Excellent book.

I would recommend it to all levels of artists. There are a large number of portraits at the end of the book that are ideal for practicing portraiture.