How to Draw Portraits in Charcoal Paperback – November 30, 2016

This book is great but recommended for more intermediate level students. The book goes along really well with a video class on schoolism.com done by the author. Amazing stuff!

Although somewhat stylized, I like his artistic charcoal portraits. He captures the personality of his subjects very well. Highly recommend.

The art work in this book is absolutely beautiful! This book would be an excellent addition to an artist’s library of instructional and inspirational work. The majority of the contents is focused on completed art work however; there are sone concepts, tips, approaches to help complete professional work. Recommended for intermediate and advanced artists.

Magnificent artwork for inspiration and very clear and useful instructions to achieve beautiful portraits yourself. Great for intermediate to advanced artists, in my opinion (The more mastery you have in drawing the face and features the more mileage you will get from the techniques detailed in this book). I will continue to get a lot of value from this book over the years... a very good investment for me and I highly recommend this book over all the books I recently purchased.

Nathan Fowkes is one of those artists you just can’t easily classify. Amazingly talented and skilled in every medium especially digital he has produced probably the best book available on charcoal portraiture. Starting with supplies and moving on to step by step techniques and then inspiring examples he give enough support for those with basic skills but I think experienced artists looking to improve will find a lot here. Very down to earth writer and sympathetic to the beginner he points out beginner mistakes to avoid and is even humble enough to include some of his own. I only wish I was talented enough to make some of his beginner mistakes!This is a great value if you really want to move up in your use of charcoal. Get this book and practice every day.

I just got this in the mail a couple days ago via pre-order, and now that's I've cracked into it I'm super pumped. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You really pool a lot of different ideas together and communicate them clearly, especially the idea of using simple shapes of tone to communicate more effectively (rather than dealing with detail). This book brings together a lot of the ideas of other teachers I've studied and I owe you deep gratitude for compiling this and sharing this with the world. I'm looking forward to working with what you've shared. :)

Fantastic instruction for minimalist charcoal portraits. What this book has done for me is improved my efficiency of stroke while still producing realistic drawings. It's reducing my line work and replaced it with tonal strokes earlier in the drawing. I've always used a 2-step process to drawing; line drawing, then shading to absorb/eliminate the lines for a realistic look. This book has helped me to combine these steps into one. I've always admired artists that don't need line drawings.

This is okay. It gives some instruction but relies heavily upon the reader's observation of progression in some pieces, or looking at finished pieces. You know, with charcoal, you just have to get started. Charcoal is inexpensive and it doesn't matter if you mess things up. Just keep on. Several pieces in, you will start to get a hang for it and realize that it is a wonderful medium for learning how to shade. Use erasers of different sizes to remove some of the charcoal to create highlights or something interesting in a piece you find boring otherwise. Spray with a fixative (I used hair spray when in art school) and keep on making more art. Just look at it as a trial piece if you don't like it. Keep your older ones to see look back and see how you're changing. Add an occasional spot of color with another soft art medium like pastel