The Creature Garden

This is a beautiful book. Aside from the stunning illustrations, it gives a very good insight into sketching and painting animals, plants and mythical creatures. Highly informative, definitely helpful and with a lot of useful tips, it encourages both people who use painting as a hobby, and students of the arts.

There is a lot of information about tools and materials. Moreover, you can understand a lot about the connection between studying an object and sketching/painting it. There is a vast variety of subjects, from mammals to fish, and from plants to mythical creatures. Finally, I loved the fact that there were also little bits of information about the creatures in the book.

Libro ideale per un artista in cerca di idee, sia già esperto che, sopratutto, alle prime armi. Chiaro e preciso nell'esposizione, con belle immagini a complemento.

The creature Garden: An Illustrator's Guide to Beautiful Beasts and Fictional Fauna By Zanna Goldhawk is such a beautiful colourful book. Throughout this wonderful book it has clear illustrations of Big Cats: Lions, Snow Leopard, Jaguar, Cats, Dogs, Foxes, Horses, Stags, Elephants, Butterflies, Bumble bee's. Ocean life: Whales, Dolphins, Mythical Creatures: Mermaids, Dragons. Botanical: Gardens, Jungle etc. Plus, much more.

This book also has good tricks and tips on how to draw these as well, plus instructions and guidelines on how to draw them from simple shapes. I found this book very helpful and it encourages you to draw thing you may of never drawn before i.e. Dragons, Mermaids etc.

This book will be used in my class with my students to create wonderful pictures of animals etc just by drawing simple shapes. This lesson will be fun and will be a regular art lesson.

Big Thank you to Netgalley for me letting me review this lovely book for a honest review.

This is the cutest little instructional drawing book! These illustrations are so whimsical and adorable. This is a really fun book to help you draw some fun animals and other things. I especially love the mythical creatures and the botanical sections. I think if I really wanted to attempt to draw these myself I would like a few more steps as someone who is not the best at drawing. All in all it’s a sweet book and I love all the colors used and the total look of the illustrations. I also love that this is from a husband and wife team, I think that's really awesome they were able to come out with this great book! I would definitely purchase this for myself if not just because it's really pretty. It would also make a great gift for someone into art or illustrations as well.

Beautiful illustrations with easy to understand tutorials to inspire you to draw your own beasts and creatures. There are fox, narwhals, centaurs, mermaids, and many other fun animals.

This is a lovely book, and it explains very clearly the steps to first drawing and painting mammals, fish, birds, insects and mythical creatures and then sets them in beautiful botanical settings. The drawings are broken down into shapes - circles, squares, triangles etc - which makes it very easy and provides confidence to the beginner. Once the skill is learnt, it does inspire, with the knowledge that all is possible and one can add their own touch to the designs.
This isn't really your typical how to draw book, as the designs can be included into very satisfying picture set in a lovely background of ones imagination. Make cards, posters and wall pictures, even use as a basic for other mediums. A very satisfying book

A very charming, and educational, work that vividly demonstrates how to draw a wide variety of creatures! The artwork is quite lovely and the instructions are very comprehensive. Ideal for those who like visual instructions and notes when craft making (like myself). Must read for all ages and ideal for educational purposes.

I love that the creators of THE CREATURE GARDEN took the time to explain how different mediums effect the outcome of a work, as well as showing it for each creature they offered instructions in. Often in "How to Draw" books, this detail is sort of missed out on and it makes it hard for would be artists to visualize as they attempt to convert a lesson into a different medium. THE CREATURE GARDEN shows animals not only in sketch form but also in watercolor, oil, even digital format. It discusses how important it is to know your medium ahead of time so that you know which things you should do dark to light first, and which you should light to dark first in. Very helpful tips. The book itself is also visually appealing.

Beautiful and cute. The Goldhawks break down the basic understructure of the animals (and mythical beasts and florals) to show how they build up shapes and textures to create utterly adorable drawings. They leave enough to the user so that you naturally end up with a drawing that's more your own than theirs.

This was such a lovingly illustrated book, I cannot draw to save my life so seeing this and actually attempting something was really fun (bad end result but as I said I don't have a flair for it!)

If you’ve ever found yourself in need of a comprehensive guide to drawing critters and fauna, then I strongly suggest you pick up a copy of The Creature Garden. Zanna and Harry Goldhawk are so thorough about a number of different elements in drawing, it’s actually quite impressive. Even if you aren’t looking for a guide, and say would like to simply look through a book with stunning drawings, then this would be fun for you.
Not only does this book include step by step guides for how to draw and color multiple animals (and fauna), but it also includes a lot of fun and helpful tips. For example, I was blown away with one of the earlier pages that compared the results of using different mediums on the same image. I’ve never seen an art guide that actually covered this (typically we see the preferred medium of the artist), and the amount of variety included was mind boggling.
I am thoroughly impressed by the level of detail and work included in The Creature Garden, and while I haven’t seen anything else by Zanna and Harry Goldhawk you can bet I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more of their work (actually, I’m going to go do some research on them once I finish writing this review – I’m too curious about their work not to!).

o, I'm a little in love with this book. Clearly, I draw my own stuff in my own style most of the time, but this book, by the Goldhawks, has a folk-artsy, clearly-demonstrated style that inspires me to try something out of my comfort zone, while simultaneously learning more than I thought I would about anatomy. Breaking things down into simple shapes means that almost anyone could learn the basics, and the painting notes give folks a way to expand on those basics to create cute animals and plants.

NetGalley gave me a copy of this for review, but I think I'm probably going to pick one up for my own library once it's released, because I have a feeling that I'll want to refer back to it pretty often while dinking around in my practice sketchbooks. Love it!

I absolutely love art instructional books. This one particularly does a great job integrating beautiful illustrations and instruction on technique and tools. This is a great manual for the beginning artist or the experienced. We can always learn more techniques in all different stages of our artmaking.

This a gorgeous guide on how to draw all creatures great and small. It is has simple to follow instructions on how to draw and colour animals all enclosed in a beautiful decorated book. A must have for those who want to improve their drawing skills.

This book is really quite adorable! Even if you have no desire to use this as instruction it is worth the read just based on the appealing nature of the illustrations' whimsical character. The instructions are pretty useful as well, very simple so if you are a more seasoned artist you might find the instructions overly simple, but someone new to art would find this quite helpful. I especially see children enjoying the style and ease of instructions presented in the book.

This is an adorable book. If you are looking for some inspiration for drawing animals and different creatures, this is the book for you. You'll find a beautiful illustrated guide with the most wonderful animals, plants and creatures. Its a great book for kids, teens and adults. And if you're an art or design student, this is an essential in your library.

There is something soothing and whimsical about this book and it is really nice to the eye, probably because most pages use nice solid colors as background. This is a book you can follow along and do some pretty creatures during the weekend just for fun, relaxation or to get some inspiration. If you want to go beyond that, the commentary at the bottom of each page holds interesting facts about the creature or plant being painted and drawing tips.

Their tutorials are for simplified, stylized animals, creatures and plants that you can paint in any medium you prefer. Each step-by-step tutorial starts with the basic geometric shapes of the animal and end with a fully colored and detailed drawing (number of steps vary but around 5 for creatures and 2-3 for botanicals). It has the same simplicity of drawing books for kids but it takes it up a notch by adding more details in their patterns and textures. It's divided into mammals, ocean life, birds, insects, mythical creatures (unicorns! pegasus!) and botanicals.

For those at the beginning of their artistic path, I would recommend you to pay special attention to the first pages and "a note from the authors" as there is really good personal advice for those who are just starting.
I requested an eArc from the publisher, thank you!

The Creature Garden is a beautiful book. Just beautiful.
Billed as an illustrator’s guide to drawing animals, it’s just as much a picture book for adults.
Each animal (and that includes birds, fish and mythological creatures) gets a full page, full colour illustration. Then there are facts about the animal and tips on drawing them. The animal illustrations are interspersed with little flowers and plants and these also get a chapter at the end. (I think these might be a bit more achievable for my drawing skill level!)
The artists have a particular, whimsical style of drawing, which may not suit everyone. I did think that their big cats looked more ursine than feline.
But the illustrations, (my favourite being the hare) are just stunning.
Thanks to Net Galley and Quarto publishing/ Rock Point.

I'm a crafter and have a vlog in which I do tutorials. I got this book thinking it could be a very good inspiration, and I was not wrong. I LOVED it. It's so beautiful. Not only it gives lots of tips sketching a large variety of animals and mythical creatures, it also has beautiful color combinations. If you're an art student, draw or paint as a hobby, it would be useful and inspirational. It's also very to the point, there's nothing unnecessary. It's easy to navigate and learn. In addition, you will find information about tools you can use. I was surprised with how many creatures are covered in the book, including mythical ones! And it's really done artistically and aesthetically.
I loved it, definitely would recommend it.

"The Creature Garden" is a step-by-step guide to drawing or painting stylized animals and plants. For each animal, the authors illustrated how to draw the basic shapes--circles, triangles, rectangles--and connect the shapes to give the basic animal outline. Then they showed which direction to paint and provided illustrations for adding color and patterns with additional details added in each step. The text mainly described information about the animal with a few tips on how to make a stylized animal recognizable.

They briefly talked about various materials you might use, like markers, watercolors, gouache, and acrylic. They showed how to make the patterns on animal coats. Overall, the illustrations do a good job of showing how to make these animals and plants, especially if you are comfortable with how-to art books with minimal text.

The authors showed how to draw a jaguar, snow leopard, tiger, lion, house cat, dog, wolf, fox, horse, deer, hare, panda, bears, sloth, elephant, giraffe, whale, dolphin, tropical fish, narwhal, octopus, seahorse, swan, flamingo, peacock, crane, owl, cardinal, butterfly, moth, damselfly, bee, phoenix, fairy, mermaid, unicorn, pegasus, griffin, centaur, hippogriff, and Asian dragon. They also provided step-by-step illustrations for several garden plants, forest plants, jungle plants, and underwater plants.

I'll take two! Seriously, one for my granddaughter and one for myself because The Creature Garden is just that wonderful. For beginner or intermediate instruction in drawing, painting and artistic techniques with a bit of wild flair, Zanna and Harry Goldhawk have provided an uncomplicated and streamlined approach for teaching art through a book. I especially love the Narwhal!
Full Disclosure: I was allowed to read a copy of this book for free as a member of NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not influenced to give a positive review.

The title is a bit misleading as there are more real animals and plants than mystical beasts, but I am totally okay with that because the way they are represented is whimsical and beautiful (there's also a chapter on fantastic beasts).

What I enjoyed the most is Zanna's gentle writing style and her tips for readers to go outside or to natural museums to get to know the animals and plants and study them before turning to the paper for their sketches and paintings. I also enjoyed that the animals and plants were featured in traditional mediums but also digital.

It's a short art book, featuring step by step illustrations of animals and plants and tips on how to simplify things like feathers or different patterns that animals have. The animals are all done in the same style, but the reader is encouraged to do it their way and how they feel most natural. The illustrations are there only to help you, but not necessarily because that's the only way the animal can be drawn.

The book is very colorful and whimsical, however sometimes it's harder to read the text because of the colored background.

This was a really gorgeous guide on drawing animals, which is something I struggle with/lack experience in. It's easy to follow and beautifully produced, and the illustration style that it uses is very cute and accessible, as well as popular at the moment. I would say that when it comes to using this book as a guide to improving in illustration, I don't know how effective it really is. I definitely found the artwork inspiring, but beyond that it doesn't really aid the artist in improving as it is a very distinct style, so what the reader will most likely do is find themselves copying the art. However I think this would be a really cool read for children, and a great guide to teachers running art classes. Will probably buy as a gift!

The Creature Garden is a beautiful book. Just beautiful. And is a great read if you are looking for some inspiration for drawing animals and different creatures.
I loved the descriptions of different mediums and techniques. I loved the whimsical feel. Me and my daughter have already started using some of the ideas in our bullet journals.

**Thanks NetGalley!**

I almost forgot about this one! Oh my gosh, it's a fantastic drawing book!

All sorts of animals, all sorts of cute tidbits and great instructions. If you or someone you know wants to play around with drawing animals - grab this book!

If someone you know doesn't like to draw, but likes art and animals, likewise grab this book.

The Creature Garden: An Illustrator's Guide to Beautiful Beasts & Fictional Fauna is a tutorial art book from husband & wife team Zanna and Harry Goldhawk. Published by Quarto - Rock Point with a release date of 29 May, 2018, it's full colour 120 pages and available in hardbound format.

One thing that struck me straightaway about the book is its exuberance. Both prose and illustrations are humour filled and supportive, encouraging shy artists to try different techniques and challenge the way they see things in order to improve their art.

The authors also show different basic techniques and materials for following their tutorials (including digital painting). The emphasis is on not following the lessons slavishly but finding methods which work for the individual. I also really loved that Zanna (who apparently wrote the text) talks honestly and encouragingly about her own learning process and growth as an artist.

The book starts by introducing materials and techniques and the different effects they can produce. The intro and tutorial chapters take up about 8% of the page content.

The lion's share of the book (~85%) is taken up with the illustrated drawing pages and tutorials for specific animals. I like that a lot of them are painted in gouache/chalk on a black background. The contrast makes it easier to see the techniques and provides a good counterpoint to the pages done in colour on a white background. There's even a comprehensive chapter for fantastic creatures including mermaids, griffons, dragons, hippogriffs and pegasi.

There are also detailed botanical drawings throughout the book to provide scale and setting to the animal drawings. Toward the back of the book, botanical and plant subjects get their own chapter with a good explanation selecting and drawing plants to provide mood and environmental context.

Really lively and fun book, accessible and encouragingly written. Four stars.

The Creature Garden by Zanna and Harry Goldhawk is a nifty drawing guide to help budding artists get the hand of drawing various sorts of animals. At the beginning, there are sections for tools, and basic tutorials such as working patterns. Here you will also find a friendly reminder that everyone starts somewhere, and you should refrain from comparing yourself to other artists who may have been at it decades longer than you. This only serves as discouragement that you can avoid.

The next several sections focus on classes of critters, from mammals, to ocean life, birds, insects, and even mythic creatures. These large sections are further broken down, with specific guidelines to help with that particular type of animals. For instance, the Mammals section kicks off with big cats. There are interesting facts accompanying each animal, most of which are assets to drawing them. Well worth it for any interested in drawing beasties!

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Quarto Publishing for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

With all the focus lately on adult coloring books and creative journaling, I wanted to check out this book for illustrators. I don’t fancy myself a sketch artist, and oftentimes my work is elementary, but this book makes drawing animals a bit easier.

If I had a copy of this in hardcover, I might have attempted to draw some of the animals. You can go on Amazon and see a few of the images from inside the book. When teaching, artists give us the circles or other basic shapes so we can build on those. As a non-sketcher (ha!), even that intimidates me.

But if you were serious about sketching and wanted a tool to use for fictional flora and fauna, this is a great one. You’ll find some fantasy here, which is freeing. Every creature doesn’t have to be photo perfect.

So, indulge your creative side!

I received a short-term free ebook copy from the publisher in exchange for my unbiased opinions.