Betty Edwards' exercises are the bread and butter of a beginning drawing course. Don't neglect a single one! For most beginners I like to buy this workbook rather than the whole book; it's less daunting, and presents the exercises in a nice, easy to follow way.
I have my doubts about the plastic picture plane thing; it's a handy tool, but I wonder if someone might get too dependent on using it. What it's best for is learning how to flatten an image in your mind, after which you can dispense with the tool except when you're using it to hone your skills.
I recommend doing the exercises on separate paper. For one thing, the paper that the book is printed on is not of the best quality. For another, you may want to save your work for gifts or something; some of the drawings will turn out quite nice. And finally, you may want to go through the notebook many times. It pays to buy a nice Moleskine drawing notebook-I like A4 size, which gives some attractive white space around the viewfinder-rectangle. A few loose pages with more tooth to them would also be handy to have around for charcoal and conte crayon drawing.
You will want at least one ink drawing pen which is not mentioned in the list of materials in the front.
What this book will do for a beginner is teach them how to see, then how to record what they see without the analytical brain getting in the way. It will show them that an artist's skills are learned, not inborn, which is a huge component of developing confidence. In short, this is the necessary first step to learning how to draw.Get more detail about New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook: Guided Practice in the Five Basic Skills of Drawing.
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