Drawing People Using Grids

Giovanni Civardi is a best-selling Italian artist and author, with over 600,000 copies of his books sold worldwide in English alone. Civardi was born in Milan, Italy in 1947. While training to become a sculptor, portrait artist and illustrator at the Free Life-Study School of the Accademia di Brera, he also studied medicine and surgery. For over a decade, he worked as an illustrator, producing commissions for newspapers, magazines and book covers. During frequent trips to France and Denmark, Civardi put on one-man exhibitions of this work and pursued his interest in studying the relationship between medical anatomy and the human form as depicted by the artist. His experience gained from teaching anatomy, life drawing and portraiture in schools and institutions over many years has led to the publication of numerous books in which Civardi's experiences are brought into focus. For more work and information visit his website: www.giovannicivardi.it.

The idea behind this series is simple and easy to comprehend – it does what it says on the tin. Each subject is overlaid by a co-ordinated grid, so that all the main points of shape and composition can easily be transferred the finished image. It’s a long-established and well-tested technique that simply works.What makes these volumes particularly useful, as well as the quality of the illustrations, is the amount of background material – structure, anatomy and features – that prefaces each set of drawings. In the animals volume, these are not just general but applied to each type – so, dogs, horses, cats. When it comes to people, these are structure, movement and posture. The main sections here divide into character, babies and children, and figures in action.

• What is the grid method? 4Portraits with character 6 Introduction 7, Anatomy 8, Features and proportions 10, Approaches to drawing 14, Portrait gallery 20Portraits of babies & children 82Introduction 83, Proportions and procedures 84, Portrait gallery 86People in action 160Introduction 161, Proportions, perspective and structure 162, Anatomy 164, Approaches to drawing static and dynamic figures 166, Sketching moving figures 174, People in action gallery 176Finding inspiration 236