Synopses & Reviews
FRANCE BELLEVILLE-VAN STONE is a self-taught French artist who loved cars and drawing as a child. As an adult, she studied English instead of going to art school, and became a public school teacher. She has been living and teaching full-time in the U.S. since late 2004.
Synopsis
Drawing activities, art instruction, and advice for artists and non-artists alike. Urban sketching--the process of drawing on the go as a regular practice--is a hot trend in the drawing world. It's also a practical necessity for creatively minded people in a busy world. In this aspirational guide, self-taught French artist France Belleville-Van Stone emboldens readers to craft a ritual of their own and devote more time to art, even if it's just 10 minutes a day. She offers motivation to move beyond the comfort zone, as well as instruction on turning rough sketches into finished work.
Belleville Van-Stone learned how to draw through her own daily practice and knows first-hand how hard it is to find time to incorporate creativity into a busy life. She encourages and teaches us how to do it with advice and guidance such as:
- An A-to-Z list of daily sketch prompts, from airports to bananas, faces to hands, meetings and workplaces
- Tips on what drawing supplies you can and should have--and how to carry them around
- Sections on accepting mistakes, drawing with limited resources, and redefining completion
- Plusses and minuses of going digital, including apps, styluses, and brushes
For those of us who dream of drawing in the minutes between school and work, bathtime and bedtime, and waking and walking out the door, the practical advice in Sketch is a revelation. By sharing her own creative process, Belleville-Van Stone Sketch inspires artists both established and aspiring to rethink their daily practice, sketch for the pure joy of it, and document their lives and the world around them.