Drawing Landscapes in Pencil

This is an excellent book on drawing. Just try to reproduce one of his drawings and you will quickly realize he is master. Drawing any one of his scenes is very instructive, what he puts in, what he leaves out, how he gets a great effect with only two or three pencil values. I've been drawing for years and was getting a little bored with my own style. I've tried to learn the "pencil painting" style that Petrie uses before but with little success, but now thanks to Petrie I finally got it. His style is a bit more impressionistic than realistic, he draws like you would expect a watercolor painter to draw, lots of white space, suggesting detail rather than explicitly putting in details. I wasn't surprised to find out that his other book is a watercolor painting book. Even though it deserves five stars, I have a few quibbles. I don't know if he had a lot softer pencils than I do, or the printing process darkened the values in his drawings, but I find I have to use at least two values darker pencil than he does, what he does with 2H and HB I have to do with HB and 2B to get anywhere near the same values. Also in the first part of the book he doesn't show any of the photo references of what he drew from,so you are basically reproducing his lines without seeing the original reference, which feels a little weird to me. Perhaps it is deliberate to help us students focus on what he is doing. Still, if you follow his drawing yours will look great. Later on in the book he does show the photo references and describe how he adjusted the scene in his drawing, which is very helpful. These are just small things, though, overall this is one of the best drawing books I have run across, and I've looked at a lot of them. Jack Hamm's book on landscape drawing is also very helpful in understanding the components of a landscape composition.

I watched a review of this book and knew I had to have it. I purchased it used, but would gladly have paid for a new one. The seller did mention that it had some damage to the cover, but the book itself was in good condition. The author, Ferdinand Petrie, gives basic techniques, then moves on to applying them to trees, mountains, rocks, buildings, and water. The last 50 pages are examples of his own work. This is a valuable addition to my collection of instructional art books.

I'm an animation student and this book has incredible tips on value for composition and strokes for texture. It is an awesome book, filled with incredibly useful tips. I got the softcover edition and thinking about buying the hardcover because it is just that good. I don't think the style of the drawings of this book are meant to display super realistic detailed rendering; the style feels a lot like painting with a pencil and lends itself to further explain the theory in the book. You can stop and look at the whole composition, the values, and go even deeper and see what strokes were made for a certain texture and the best thing is that it is all in pencil! which I draw with all the time before getting all fancy with my laptop and cool software. I'd say this is a book for a beginner/intermediate, the author assumes that the student already knows how light works, different types of shadows, where is the light source is, how value works to create volume, etc... but does a wonderful job breaking down strokes to convey texture, which has made my drawings look a lot better! All in all, it's a fantastic book.

BOOK: 5 Stars SELLER (hippo_books): 3 Stars The book itself is wonderful. I have a pencil drawing book that included work by Petrie, and since I liked his work and method of teaching, I bought this book. He has an impressionistic style where you can see his pencil marks, which makes for beautiful texture. He shows you his initial planning and experimentation with composition, vignettes, and where to place light and shadow, then has step-by-step progression to the final drawing. I highly recommend this artist and book to improve or further explore your pencil landscape drawing techniques, as well as skills with planning your composition in general for any drawing. As for the seller, the book arrived in a reasonable amount of time, BUT it was wrapped in brown paper--that's it! No padding at all. One corner was completely ripped off and that corner of the book was pretty damaged. That was disappointing! They could have at least placed some shipping tape around the corners to reinforce them. I realize this book is used, but that's no reason to be that cheap with packaging. I will avoid this seller in the future.

I'm just getting into this book, and it definitely is very useful for me, but the artist's work often looks a bit sloppy. I haven't sketched up many things -- I've only had the book a few days -- but sometimes I find myself fine-tuning the piece [i.e., using a paper stump to blend] and I wish he had included areas that show the reader material more broad than just the New England area. That said, I'd certainly recommend the book at a 3-star level -- I am finding it useful -- but sometimes I look at the author's "finished drawing" and it doesn't look finished to me at all. If you love New England beaches, lobster boats, and fishing shacks, you'll be really happy with this. I just wanted a broader focus than the book provides.

The exercises in this book are very helpful. I was working on improving my use of values (darkness and lightness) in watercolor painting. The pencil work seems to have improved my skills.

An excellent and very low priced book. It doesnt bog itself down in Perspective theory etc but goes to the heart of the matter concerning Values and Textures. With excellent illustrations and step by step guides it is very helpful to a novice with graphite.

Very informative and helpful

Jam packed with excellent, clear instruction and beautiful examples of pencil drawings as art.

Images in the Kindle edition are of really low quality. Can't even see the pencil strokes clearly..bad experience......don't buy the Kindle edition.

I am absolutely loving this book. It has taught me so much about drawing techniques and values in a composition. It is well worth buying.