Pocket Art: Portrait Drawing

Pocket Art: Portrait Drawing is a wonderful addition to the library of any budding portrait artist. The step-by-step guide covers everything from face shape and alignment to advice on tackling specific features. The handy pocket size will make it easy to carry for artists on the go. I found the section on approaching hair particularly beneficial, as that is the aspect of portraiture I always find hardest to master. I will definitely be giving Henly's technique a try in my next drawing. The only thing I might have liked to have seen included was a little more on shading, but otherwise, this feels like a very complete compact guide. 4.5 stars.

Pocket Art: Portrait Drawing: The quick guide to mastering technique and style by Joanna Henly is a sweet little book that you can keep in your back pocket or keep in your bag that does not take up too much room. 
It has good tips throughout this book and gives you step by step illustrations on how to draw a face with good detail capturing all facial features and their expressions. 
It has very clear and good excerises that you can do so you can achieve your perfect drawing of someones face and features etc.

Thank you to Rockport Publishers and Negalley for letting me read this book for a review.

Reviews Left on my Goodreads, Amazon UK and my FB page.

"Portrait Drawing" provides tips on how to draw simple portraits of people using pencils. The author briefly described the basics of using a pencil to draw (like how to hold the pencil and the types of marks you can make). Then she showed how to draw a general face/head oval and place guidelines on it to help put the facial features in the correct spots. She then focused on drawing each facial feature at various angles and included male/female and age differences. She also provided sketches and some tips for creating expressions, skin tones, and different types of hair.

The book was mainly illustrations showing how to block in the face and features from various viewing angles plus a number of the author's finished portraits. Overall, I'd recommend this book to artists who like examples and tips on creating portraits at unusual angles, as that seemed to be the strong point of this book.

This is a super handy quick guide to simple ways to draw portrait's.



With shaping tips for the face and features with plenty of visual guide and minimal wording, we are shown all aspects of facial features we could need help with. The use of shading is huge as a tip for adding depth and more life to a portrait.



With simple pencil drawn guides before and after stages as well as full blown colour face pictures, we can see how the images produced have progressed like ours should do too.



Very useful if you're unsure where to start of want to progress and improve your work.



Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Many thanks for this advanced copy. It inspired me to get out my pencils and have a go. I was amazed at how good my attempt was. This book gives clear and simple examples of how to construct facial features. I’ve never before been able to draw and eye so realistic I thought it was going to wink at me! I have always struggled with noses but now I understand how to get the right positioning and shape. I felt confident enough to attempt a self portrait and i’m really pleased with the result. Hands next please?

This is a really handy little book and ideal for beginners and experienced artists alike. There are loads of exercises and examples in the book but very little writing. At first I thought that the lack of writing would be a hindrance but the sketches actually talk for themselves. Very clever.

I've enjoyed this modern look at perspective and personality in portrait drawing. If you've ever wanted to make faces come alive, you'll find a lot of ideas here.

There are great illustrations, how-tos, and tips that will boost your work and help you appreciate existing portraits. The movement, style, and fresh look at drawing faces will make you smile - and grab your sketching tools.

Recommended.

This book is exactly what it sets out to be, a pocket book on portrait drawing. Following the introduction it is divided into four main sections: Your setup; Understanding the face; Features, and Skin Tones and Hair. It explains what you need to prepare to draw and plenty of examples of how to draw a portrait and the different facial features within it. As a guide for a beginner I found this very helpful.

This is a great little book giving an introduction into portrait drawing. It is set out to give an overview of how to plot the head and face shape first. There are then more in-depth sections about particular features of a portrait. This gives the reader the chance to practice drawing eyes, noses, mouths etc. before trying to fit them into a whole face. 
The author, Miss Led is an amazing portrait artist and there are many examples of her work throughout the book. These are all in a variety of styles and give some good inspiration for how to tackle a portrait.

An invaluable resource for artists who want to include portraits in their skill set. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step examples show the basics of form, proportion, alignment of the face, before moving on to specifics about each detail of the face (eyes, ears, nose, etc.) and how to capture emotions.

I would definitely want this handy reference in my library. Very well done!!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Rockport Publishing for allowing me to read the book in exchange for an unbiased review.

This is a great book if you like learning by mostly illustrations.  It gave a clear, concise drawings with tips mixed in.  Good for beginners.

An excellent guide for portrait beginners - or people like myself who used to draw but can no longer hold a pencil properly - with wonderful illustrations, techniques, and colours!

Informative easy to follow instruction on drawing faces. I learned a lot about drawing faces in many different angles. I also learned the proper proportions for faces which took my drawing from a rather whimsical style to actually producing portraits which are much more realistic and appealing. A wonderful tool to help improve your drawing skills:

#NetGalley

Miss Led teach from scratch how to produce portraits. The techniques are easy to follow. The book covers everything: from head to shoulders. Excellent book!

I've always struggled in sketching portraits so I thought I'd give this book a try. I'm pleased to say that after studying some of the step by step instructions and training myself how to really see shapes in the subject, I'm much less terrible and even improving. Great resource for basic anatomy also.

Pocket Art: Portrait Drawing is a nice book to reference when working on Faces.  I also found that this was quick moving and the change from one to the next was VERY quick and not all that basic.  So it depends on your talent and where you are in your drawing skills as to if this will be a good fit for you.  I know for me, if I’m working on a certain part, say an ear, then this resource can be helpful for me to look at.   
I received a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was an excellent drawing book specifically for those concentrating on drawing portraits.  There are a lot of drawing exercises focusing on the details of portraits.  The section on how to draw hair was very helpful.  This book covers all the important portrait drawing topics, hair type, expressions, skin tone, placement of features and more.

I received this galley from NetGalley.

One of those times where I feel like I've bitten more than I could chew. My biggest frustrations with my art is learning how to draw people and create portraits. The best I can do at the moment are manga drawings but I thought to check this book out to see what if I can learn something. This book, while very informative, was not as friendly for newbies as I hoped. Maybe if you've already had a bit of experience doing portraits, the artist's tips may be more helpful to you than it is to someone like me who has barely started exploring the craft.