Drawing - An Introduction [DVD]

I found the product to be exactly as described and am very pleased with it - I would recommend you to my friends

Not being an artist I don't know whether the information in this DVD is sound or not. However, given her academic position at Wimbledon, I imagine the presenter and artist know what she is talking about.

The pace of the DVD is very slow. This puts it at a disadvantage in a modern world where we have all been used to quick and instant things where someone like Rolf Harris has polished off a drawing in a few minutes.

But I guess the world of drawing is a place where we have to learn to 'sit and stare'. This lady slowly contemplates her paper, pencil, easel, model, standing position and proportions of her model with her pupil. As her portrait appears on canvas the artist admits her problems and failings in a very human way. None of it is very exciting stuff, unfortunately. At the end of the session she has an impressionistic drawing of her model which I think is rather solid and beautiful. I bought this this DVD for my 14 year old daughter to help her with art at school but I know she will be bored with it.

Look at the drawing on the cover of this DVD. It's a drawing of a beautiful life model with an age of at most 30 years. To me, the drawing looks like an ugly drawing made by a child.
It appears to be a drawing made by Anita Taylor professor of fine art at a school of art. This one drawing, the only drawing on the DVD, that looks like an ugly middle aged witch, without good likeliness with the model, took Anita a whole afternoon!

Is this DVD an introduction to drawing ? No, hardly any basics are covered, within no time, a start is made with life model drawing, with pencil, behind an easel.
Is this DVD an introduction to model drawing ? No, there is no introduction on gesture, direction, line, volume, proces to draw a model, foreshortening, etc. etc.

There are many different ways to draw a model that all work fine. Anita Taylor uses a method of which all drawing teachers I know tell you it doesn't work. Anita relies on a lot of measuring (with a stick; you know the method), starting with measuring before she even draws a line. This doesn't work and Anita demonstrates that convincingly. For a very long time, the whole DVD, she keeps struggling and stumbling to get the drawing right and she doesn't succeed. She doesn't get the pose right, she doesn't get the face right, she doesn't get foreshortening right and she draws hands like a bunch of bananas (Anita's words, but she is right).
All life model drawing teachers I've had up till now, draw considerably better and a lot faster.

If you have done an introduction to life model drawing before you will probably already draw better then the drawing you see on this DVD.
If you haven't done an introduction to life model drawing up till now, then this DVD definitely is not the place to start.
In my view this DVD is a complete waste of time and money, I've kicked it into the bin.