Fairy Artist's Figure Drawing Bible

Linda Ravenscroft is an artist of international standing, whose beautifully detailed fairy and fantasy images can be seen all over the world, from fine art prints to exclusive giftware and fantasy art books. Linda became a professional fantasy artist in 1996, and since then her work has been in demand, with many of her pieces now with American collectors. Linda is the author of How to Draw and Paint Fairyland, and How to Draw and Paint Fairies, which has sold 200,000 copies worldwide.

Sept 09Draw a whole fairyland of fantastic creatures with this latest addition to Search Press' popular Bible series. This book opens out flat, which is so handy when working from it and there is plenty in here to work from. The subtitle promises "ready-to-draw templates and step-by-step techniques" and delivers the goods, starting from scratch with lots of projects to work through. To inspire and inform the book opens with a brief chapter on great artists who have chosen to depict this type of subject, from William Blake in the 18th century right up to Alan Lee's Tolkein illustrations. Only one picture from each (nothing from William Blake) is included, so maybe "inspiration" is a bit of a stretch for this. The section for what you need is diverse but short, ranging from colored pencils and markers to an airbrush so take your pick. There are even two pages on working digitally, although not enough of this to really mean anything. The book's strength is in the staged projects, which take you from pencil sketches and outlines to the finished work, in fewer stages than in the Ready to Paint series but still enough for any but the total tyro. There is just about everything in here to do with drawing and painting fairies, from getting expressions right to assembling a suitable wardrobe, and a whole host of other creatures from folklore as well as hints for flower fairy paintings. One original way of working involves line drawings of some of the characters for tracing or scanning and then coloring in - an interesting idea and rather how I learned to draw when a small child. In all, I was impressed by the many and varied suggestions for getting pencil to paper, and all roads seem to lead to a good grounding in basic and intermediate techniques.

• PrelimsIntroductionGetting startedFrom sketch to finished pictureHuman and fairy anatomyCostumeDirectory of fairiesGalleryIndex and credits