Drawing Methods; Pencil Drawing

Gail Price is the instructor for these two new tapes in Crystal Video's "Art Is..." series. The weaker of the pair, Drawing Methods, features Price using a variety of tools to achieve different effects in her drawings: a crow quill pen, magic markers, colored pencils, even twigs. She also tries unusual backgrounds--such as a fine pencil drawing of a black cat done on a page of newspaper. Yet, there's no real order here and little systematic instruction (this is more a "look at this" and "look at that" approach). Novice artists probably won't gain much. More advanced artists, however, might appreciate Price's suggestions for trying new methods. Pencil Drawing, while sharing some of the same features as Drawing Methods (notably a lack of order or direction) has the advantage of sticking to one medium, and much like Pollock threw paint at a canvas and came up with something to appreciate, Price throws ideas at the viewer and some of them stick. Her demonstration of the ways of manipulating the pencil through techniques of scumbling, smudging, stippling, and drawing hatches and crosshatches would be helpful to budding artists. And her drawings of marshmallows, broccoli sprouts, and dinner rolls sent me into the kitchen for lunch (and people still doubt the power of art). Drawing Methods is an optional purchase, though libraries with extensive collections in art instruction should consider adding it. Pencil Drawing is recommended. (R. Pitman)