Perspective Drawing Handbook (Dover Art Instruction) Paperback – May 17, 2004

This is currently my favorite perspective book!I love this book because it's clear, concise, slim & to the point. It's very enlightening! In my opinion, Joseph D' Amelio was a genius in his understanding of perspective & his ability to communicate this to others. The text may be a little academic by today's standards, but it's still easily worth getting. He uses the words "parallel" and "perpendicular" a lot, because he's being precise in his communication. Because this book is so slim, clear & reasonably priced, I highly recommend this to anyone & *everyone* interested in learning about perspective-based drawing. Even if it doesn't become everyone's favorite overall, it's certainly worth having in any collection, as perspective is such an important topic that it's really best to buy a number of books. And if we're going to buy a number of books, it might be helpful to know which are the *best* while at the same time being reasonably priced. This is at the top of my list!Three-point perspective is covered here, although he actually avoids this term and instead calls this "looking up & down". It's simplistic in its approach, but that's what great teachers are about: taking difficult concepts & making them easy to understand. And as mentioned, while the writing may at times be a little stiff, this book relies mostly on visuals, which are entirely in black & white and mostly in pen & ink. Perspective Drawing Handbook: my highest recommendation!P.S. My current Top 3 perspective books include: Perspective Drawing Handbook; Perspective Made Easy; and then Perspective! For Comic Book Artists.P.P.S. An interesting observation: there is at least one visual error in this book. On page 55, there are common objects depicted in 3-point perspective, as often seen when we're looking down. The bed on this page has vertical lines converging in the wrong direction(!). In every other picture on this page, the vertical lines are, accurately, converging downwards. With the bed, we get the opposite(!). How this found its way into print is beyond me, but I still think this book is great.

This book is outstanding in its explanations of perspective. It is easy to follow and the examples are extraordinary. I have been drawing for years, but this is the first book I’ve looked at to explain perspective so it is somewhat difficult to compare it to others at this point. However, I can say the examples that go with the written explanations are tremendous tools! I highly recommend it. I would also recommend “Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards, (available on Amazon). Based on what is taught in this perspective drawing book, my erasures should soon be minimal as opposed to the many I made previously while struggling to draw what I thought I saw as opposed to what I actually saw.

This book is very challenging for me. I'll read a portion and it will make no sense to me. I'll go back a read the same section again the next day and I'll glean a bit more. The third time is usually my "Ah Ha" moment.The concepts are new to me so it makes sense that it takes a while to grasp what is being written. What is so good about the book is that I am able, eventually, to grasp the concepts.My one complaint is that sometimes the descriptions to not line up logically with the illustrations. Knowing that, I pay extra attention to ensure that the description is describing the illustration.I especially like some of the techniques for spacing items in perspective (like lampposts lining a street toward the vanishing point. I would Never have figured that out on my own.Great book. I think I'll buy a copy for my niece.

Nice book maybe a little more info than I need.Problem - this is a soft cover book with glued in pages (binding) The first time I opened the book and turned the pages, 9 pages separated from the glue binding and fell out.

Geometric perspective is a mathematical idea. As someone with a lot of math in his background I would have been very happy to open a book full of equations and proofs. In this book there are none that I can see. No math at all! The instruction is by careful examination of simple diagrams and examples appealing to the reader's natural intuition (common sense and experience).There is no way to properly learn perspective without some serious work and the author expects the reader to pay close attention to the examples and the discussions. Even with a good grasp of the underlying math, it took a bit of chewing to digest some his points. So this is not an easy breezy read. It's a very thorough and careful exposition of basic perspective.Out of 96 pages, 76 are devoted to the cube in perspective. This makes sense, if you have a thorough mastery of the cube, you can use it to understand and layout any shape.It's an old book. The diagrams and pictures are in black and white and the style is rather old fashioned. Nevertheless, this book is well worth the time and for $9 delivered it's a steal.

The author has done a great job in explaining the sometimes very complicated fundamentals of perspective. Some things covered are one and two point perspective, distortion, depths, planes and so much more. It's the how and why of drawing believable lines, and drawing what you see, not what you think you see. This book is useful for anyone who wants to further their drawing skills or learn more about the technical side of drawing.

Practical and easily dissectible. A nutless monkey could do it