Drawing People Using Grids

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.

This book goes into a lot of detail and is extremely technical so would be great for someone who is very serious about drawing portraits and people. I love all the different examples in the galleries.

Giovanni Civardi is nothing if not prolific, but the continuing popularity of his books testifies to their quality and the Drawing with Grids series offers an interesting take on a variety of subjects. Animals and People have just appeared and deal with tricky subjects in a particularly straightforward way. The main instructional pages cover a single subject in a single spread, with the basic grid and simple progressive stages from outline to tonal studies. Each book contains an excellent variety of material.

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.