This book is as much about understanding "how and why all of us have the ability to draw but can't" as it is about teaching anyone to draw. If you are an older begginer this is a must, not only it teaches you how to tap into your natural drawing ability but it tells you why you STOPPED drawing. I always understand things better when I know why it happens or doesn't happen So if you ALSO want to feed your INTELLECT as much as your artistic talent get THIS book. If you just want mindless excercises and learn to draw by practice then get "Complete Idiot's guide to drawing," (no pun intended) by Lauren Jarrett, Lisa Lenard. The Idiot's guide pretty much copies concepts and methods THIS book puts forwared but without the detailed explanation and science behind it, specially if you are young and/or don't want to read too much. The method is the same and it WORKS.

Since the first time I read this book in 1983, I had the wish to express my gratitude to Dr. B. Edwards, because this book made great difference in my life. Through understanding better the process of realistic drawing I have improved my self in many ways. Learning to really see is a way to grow inside as a person, in all senses. That book has marked my passage from adolescence to adulthood (I was 22 then. At the time I was attending Massachussets College of Art in Boston, and heard about this book listening "All Things Considered" at National Public Radio, rigth after I bought it at the Harvard Coop). It also opened my self to accept what we do not explain, to have faith in God. I'm artist living and working in Northeast Brazil,city of NATAL, where I have a studio. I work mostly with acrylics and watercolor, but my strongest media of expression is freehand drawing... Thanks for sharing my feelings, Love Flavio Freitas

An excellent book which takes a positive & optimistic view of relationships that may not last forever. Designed for mature and experienced readers, with experience being IN a relationship, but forgetting how to START a relationship. First 1/3 of book helps the reader accept the OK-ness of the end of a major intimate relationship. The second 1/3 helps the reader identify him/her self as an individual, now able to pursue any dreams desired. The 3rd 1/3 of the book helps the reader start to confidently re-enter the outside world, with their now-clarified self-concept, in search of new (more compatible) friendships, acquaintances, and maybe loves.

This book explains short term relationships between friends, family, lovers, and strangers. It explains why we need short term relationships and how to keep long term relationships by viewing them as a daily decision for a short term relationship. It is not about lack of commitment, lack of love, lack of anything. It is about healthy relationships

This and White's follow-up books Across the Unkwown and the Unobstructed Universe are extremely objective yet cover the deepest levels we can ever hope to understand. Written so that even a beginner can follow yet amazingly profound. I'd also consider it the best self-help book around, as the importance and long-term signifigance of even our smallest acts is stressed throughout. These books focus on YOU and a METHOD OF LIVING, and don't even discuss reincarnation, etc. They focus on the most important issues.

(This reviewer is an expert in metaphysics and is available for consulting/counseling/grief counseling. Also interested in meeting SWF 25-35 with interests in metaphysics)

IN YOUR VISIT TO ORLANDO VISIT THE FLORIDA MALL AND ENJOY THE GRAND OPENING(NOV).OF VERTIGO ORLANDO. MENTION THIS ADD AND GET 10% IN YOUR SHOP. ASK FOR ALEX OR CARMEN. GOOD LUCK AND THANKS

Drawing? I can't draw.... With very structred lessons and exerices, this great book takes you through different ways of seeing the world and helps you transfer the new found images to paper. Everyone can draw. You only need to know how to see like an artist and it is extremely simple. I have spent a week reading the book and the improvement is profound. A basic outline of a hand has become a detailed realistic image of my hand. Do I have the new found talent that artists all seem to have? Nope, all I have is this cool book by Betty Edwards that has taught me how to draw like my dad had taught me how to ride my bike. Drawing is a skill that all can learn. You just need the right tools and the right instructions.

I am incredibly happy to have found this book. I have just completed all the lessons (it took me about 6 months with a few breaks), and my family is amazed at how well I can draw now. I'm still amazed when I look at my "before" drawings. My improvement is as dramatic as the before and after pictures she shows in the book.

I checked out The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain from the library because I thought a new version might be more helpful. There are some parts that were explained more clearly in the New book, but it requires a lot of materials. I found it harder to stick with. It was at this point that I was almost ready to quit. I picked up the the old one again, though, and resumed the lessons. However, reading different explanations of the same concept was very helpful.

I became very frustrated because for a long time, I saw little improvement (though now I see I was pretty critical of myself). If you stick with it, you should begin to see results.

I don't think I go into "right-brain mode" every time I draw, and I was ready to give up at first because she stresses that this is the most important part. However, I have learned to draw anyway, even without fully entering into this right-brain mode. Maybe most people do experience this, but I didn't exactly as she described. Even so it teaches you the fundamentals of drawing. I took a weekend drawing class and found I knew as much as people who had taken art classes before.

I looked at other drawing books and found this one to be the easiest to follow and the most encouraging. She is very good at demystifying the process of drawing. I've heard The Natural Way to Draw is also very good, but he expects you to have access to models over a period of several months, which few people have.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks they have no talent in drawing, which is what I believed too. I'm convinced, after completing this book, that anyone could learn to draw if s/he just took the time and effort to do so.

In this book, Betty Edwards gives you a in depth study of the function of the brain and the relation between the brain and your artistic abilities. She goes to the extreme saying that all people can draw fairly good where many people who believe they can not draw at all, actualy can be excellent drawing artists. With a doctors degree she realy goes deep into the technical aspects to form a platform for her teaching.

The book is full of illustrations done by her students. What I enjoyed most in this book is the concept of shifting your mind from a left-mode to a right-mode and the exercises she gives to make that possible. Her lecture on shapes and negative spaces also put you in a mind shift making it possible to view everything visible in life in a different way. This book is a stunning book in conjuction with Lee Hammonds book, 'How to draw lifelike portraits from photographs'. Edwards realy opens the strength of your artistic side where Lee Hammond teaches the core facts of HOW to achieve that lifelike likeness. Get both !!

Despite all the hoopla surrounding the paperless society, I (and everyone I know that I have informally polled) find myself writing plenty for business and for pleasure. In fact, my motivation for purchasing and reading this book came from my children. They told me with that innocent honesty that they couldn't read the letters that I sent to camp for them. When I offered to type the letters, they told me that they would rather keep it the way it was, because they liked to get them even though they couldn't (save the oldest, who was recruited as translator) read them. I was struck with the truth; you give something extra of yourself when you write your own words in your own hand.
I found this to be the only book on the subject for adults at the local bookstore at that time. I read the introductory chapters with scepticism as it tried to point out the characteristics of handwriting that have been related to personality type, but that's my bias. It was entertaining enough otherwise, and there were some signatures of famous people that were interesting. The meat was next: 1)a discussion of why handwriting is generally done poorly in this country 2) a plan to improve handwriting by a combination of exercises. This book leaves you to design your own exercises within a general overall framework provided by the author. I was highly motivated, so that was enough for me. Others might have preferred a more step-by-step approach. I was introduced to an economical form of cursive writing and invited to incorporate aspects of it into my own style.
The result of my 30 day exploration was significant. Others at work who saw me doing the exercises on my free time became interested in the process. My handwriting improved in readability and style because of better small muscle function in my hand, but more because my perception of what constituted readable script had changed. My eye was interpreted my own handwriting differently. In the last 3 years, my handwriting remains much different and more easily read than before. The quality of my work in healthcare has improved because people read my handwriting without difficulty, and more of it gets read. And the kids can read what comes to camp.

This is a wonderful book that really works. Every since I was an elementary school child I had been plagued by feelings of inferiority because of my atrocious handwriting. In my late teens, in an effort to solve this problem, I gave up cursive writing all together and tried block printing. This was slow and tedious and the results were scarcely more legible. My handwriting was still a joke, so bad that even I found it impossible to read.

Beautiful handwiting has always held a fascination with me and I love the simplicity of pencil or pen on paper. After frequent attempts to write more neatly however, I assumed that this was a skill that was beyond me: my poor handwriting was something I would have to live with. I did so - for many years.

In my late 30's I found this book in a second hand book shop and purchased it immediately. Improving my handwriting took longer than 30 days, but after half a year of practise I suddenly began to recieve compliments on my penmanship. The high point came when a student approached me after a class (I am a teacher) and mentioned how much she admired my writing.

Rather than stressing individual letters, Paula breaks down handwriting into a series of basic shapes and stresses rhythm instead. Students work at writing down a series of patterns such as "waves" or "hoops." I found performing these exercises to be enjoyable and relaxing and did most of my practise, about 10 minutes every day, during a series of tedious staff meetings. After 30 days there was definately some improvement but in my case several months were necessary before I could feel confident going public with my new skill.*

I wanted to buy a copy of this book for a friend and was shocked to see it was no longer in print. Someone should reprint it. I would like to use this message board to publicly thank Paula and commend her for being an excellent teacher.

(*Unfortunately my happiness was short lived. A year later I developed RSI from excessive computer use and this, of course, desroyed my ability to write.)

Americans today are sick of things. We've got way too many of them and most of them are utterly useless, oftentimes almost grotesque in their superfluity. A flip side to this overload is that we, especially the younger generation, lose touch with how beautiful and life-enhancing a thing can actually be. We're awash in things, but ignorant of "thingness." In all the rhetoric about possessions not creating happiness--true at bottom but overdone--we're forgetting that, yeah, actually, some things do make me pretty damn happy.

This book Quintessence shows us a few of these special things and allows us to enjoy them by pointing them out, and on a more general level the book persuasively argues for a re-appreciation of objects of affection and even of utility. The things shown in this book vary widely--from a brown paper bag to a Harley Davidson to a Camel cigarette to a Keds hightop--all sharing the one common quality of "quintessence," the quality of having it. At least as the authors see "it," that is. Fortunately, they're almost always right. I came across no thing in the book that I rejected as having a classical "thingness" that, once recognized, does work on the senses and can sometimes even bring an unconscious smile to your face. Accompanying the photos of these objects is stylish, flowing prose from Edwards and Cornfeld, both accomplished writers and people of fine taste. Edwards, now a columnist at Forbes ASAP, has written on topics as diverse as men's clothing, technology, office politics and the difference between how West Coasters work vs. New Yorkers, and all of his work exhibits this special talent of searching for, and often finding, the essence of the thing. The book, then, is a joy to read as well as look at the pictures. I came away with a new appreciation for the things I love in life--I remember my fifth-grade red nikes, my Costco-bought Spalding basketball, the Ferrari Testarossa--and I think others who read this book will do the same.

Unfortunately, the copy being sold on this website is not up to snuff with the quality of the book itself. There are a couple missprints and the page layout next to the pictures isn't great. The original printing of this book now retails for large sums, sometimes in excess of 700 dollars, and imagining how fine this book well-printed would be offers a clue as to why. For persons of lesser means, however, this copy will do just fine to get the message across: don't forget, amidst plenty, the value and aesthetic pleasure to be gained from one, loved thing.

We need another book like this. Most design books lack "it".

When the first book came out many years ago I was extremely excited, and actually wrote my senior thesis for my Art Education degree about the right/left brain theory. I used the material from the first book to instruct the kids in my classes when I began to teach. Then I paid a lot of money to go see Betty Edwards give a lecture. I was disappointed, turned off, and my whole image of Ms. Edwards was crushed. Now the new book...my true opinion is that she is trying to reinvent the material to make a few more bucks. This book has some viable exercises, and would be fine for the non-drawing person who needs some direction. However, there are a lot of other books (like The Natural Way to Draw) that are a whole lot better. Betty Edwards is not God's gift to learning how to draw...practice and determination are. My advice? Get a different book.

About that "Right Side of the Brain" business: When this book first came out, the popular literature was clogged with popular works on left brain/right brain functionality, and most of it was total garbage- including most of the stuff on brain laterality in this volume.

No matter, though; this is still a very good tutor for the beginning artist. The exercises work whether or not you think you're drawing on the right side of your brain. They're very well thought out, practical excercises that work.

What they *aren't* is original.

There's a very influential book that was first published in 1941 (and is still in print) entitled "The Natural Way to Draw", by Kimon Nicolaides. Nicolaides was a very influential artist who taught at New York's Aret Students League, and Edwards' book is essentially Nicolaides with a lot of nonsense about "R-mode" and "L-mode" that serves no practical didactic purpose.

Edwards' book is still a good tutor for the novice, but Nicolaides is just as good- and in some ways, better.

I am not an artist, and would not normally presume to comment on an art instruction book. However, my personal experience is that after reading this book, I am now able to sketch for the first time in my life. I have always wanted to be able to draw, and for various reasons had never succeeded. This book presented sketching in a way I had never encountered, and it was effective for me.

The only negative I can find with this book is that it is a little repetitive...I think the real benefit is in looking at drawing in a new way, which you learn in the first couple of chapters. I did not find it necessary to read the entire book to see the positive results.

Rutherfurd has done an amazing thing here in that he has written a comprehensive novel that encompasses 1800 years of history of an exotic, enigmatic land shrouded in mystery and secrecy. We all still know so little about Russia. An enormous amount of research must have gone into this book, and he definitely has outdone his previous works because understanding Russian history is like trying to find the light switch in a dark room after spinning around 25 times. One has to start from the very beginning and inch forward or one would get lost, and all the time you have dizziness and vertigo! This is made even more harrowing because finding a starting point is virtually impossible. I like the way he describes this in the opening pages by drawing attention to the fact Russia was still a dark, backward land where people marked the days by what village elder had recently died or what harvest was good or bad, while the rest of the world was watching the Roman empire reach its apex and Christianity was blooming and gaining firm footholds in the ancient pagan world. This theme continues throughout as he informs us that Russia lagged nearly two weeks behind the rest of the world on the calendar all the way up to modern times, until it finally adopted the standard calendar. One gets the feeling that for much of its life, Russia has been an enormous and powerful yet feeble-minded child. Russian potential for greatness is omnipresent but it has been hindered by bewildering customs and backward outlooks on life and the world. Just looking at a globe, it seems nearly impossible to tell which way is north, east, south, or west. Is it a European nation? Is it Asian? Is it both, or neither? Rutherfurd points out that in Russia, the rules are different. The laws of physics work differently, and any attempt by the Russians to reverse this actually seems to get them into bigger trouble. Its a very painful process for the country to move against the grain of its own nature. Over time, Russia is tediously drug kicking and screaming into maturity, and he perfectly captures this journey and its effects on fictional but all too real Russian citizens.

I was very impressed with the job Rutherfurd did. Russka is indeed a worthy epi. I leave the "c" off because I feel he came up just short. It's as if he became exhausted while flailing around in the massive quagmire into which he heroically threw himself. An enormous chapter on the revolutionary period leads into a tiny mention of World War II (literally half a page). I found a problem with this in that 20 million Russians, both soldiers and civilians, died during this war, more casualties than any other nation suffered by a longshot. So how can one try to grasp what Russia is all about by skimming over so traumatic a national experience? Also absent are vivid descriptions of the effects on the Russian people of farm collectivization and the Cold War. Perhaps this is unfair to Rutherfurd in that he has chosen to teach us something we didn't already know. Many Americans alive today fought in World War II, or took part in subsequent conflicts in which we went head to head with Soviet-sponsored communist forces. We lived in fear of nuclear annihilation while hiding under our school desks during armageddon drills, and we watched Russians steal our thunder as they rocketed into space just ahead of us. So maybe the author let the middle and latter stages of the 20th century speak for themselves. But it seemed like just as Rutherfurd was in the last mile of the marathon and it was time to sprint, he decided to ride to the finish line in a golf cart. His saving grace, however, is that he finished strong in the last few pages. The epilogue was one of the best chapters and answered, for me, many questions that had accumulated during my progress through the previous episodes. Through 945 pages, I came to see these people as afraid and confused, yet vaguely aware of their largely untapped power and what they could continue to offer the world.

Rutherfurd doesn't shy away from a challenge, that much can be said, and the reward is an ardent attention to detail and color that I guarantee will be hard to find elsewhere in regards to this subject matter. Overall, I think this novel is a new standard by which other writers should gauge their own efforts to make some sense out of the chaos that is the history of Russia.

This was my first book by Rutherford, read even before SARUM. I've been mildly interested in Russia for a while, and I was intrigued to see the book...but to be honest, didn't expect much. I was very wrong. The book follows the families that spring from two characters in the first chapter...the curious peasant child Kiy, and a wild tribesman called only The Alan, moved by mercy to part with his most prized possession. Throughout the novel, each chapter is set in a different time period, showing how the descendants of these two characters rise and fall throughout the periods of the Princes of Kiev, the rise of Moscow, Czar Ivan the Terrrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, the Bolshevic Revolution, and, finally, into Post-Communist Russia. The book tempers its awesome span with characters that seem to leap living and breathing from the pages, and to my delight,I noticed that some seem loosly based on characters from Russian folklore. The book is rife with all kinds of people: nobles, serfs, industrialists, Cosacks, poets, freedom fighters, and villains, but essentially human beings. Excellent book.

One of the richest historical tapestries written in the 20th century bringing Russian pre-revolutionary history to life like nothing since Tolstoy.I loved every minute of it and lived with the figures in the novel-wept ,rejoiced and feared for them.Saw the barbarism of the first settlements by nomadic people,the cruelty of Ivan the Terrible,the pompous hypocricy of the court of Catherine The Great and the confusion and despair of the 19th century and the excitement and fear of the pre-revolutionary era.But I was bitterly disapointed that Rutherford did not document the horrors of the Stalin period in more detail and did not cover the years of Russian history after World II.How wonderful an acount of the stalled reforms of Kruschev,the stagnation of the later Kruschev years and of the Brezhnev years.The Cold war and the invasions of Poland,Hungary,Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan ,the indocrination by the Communist party and the valour of the persecuted dissidents,through the eys of different Russian people would have been.The collapse of the Soviet union and the heroic stand by the people of Moscow against the failed 1991 Stalinist coup would have enriched and completed the account.Because this was abruptly ommited I will give the novel four instead of five stars

This book is more for corporate executive types who think 'being creative' is doodling on a notepad for 5 minutes. *Those* dudes need to explore their inner artist a little more, for sure. If you're in a creative block, or wanting to learn how to draw, there are much better resources out there to help you out. You really don't need this book, as it will be a waste of time and keep you from actually making art!

Also, regarding the author: Betty Edwards seems to have over-analyzed the right-brain/left-brain system - something the left-brain would be in control of, according to her teachings. She was defeating her purpose by writing a book about the method, since people must experience, firsthand, the ecstasy of hitting 'the zone' when making something. Analyzing it and taking credit for such a natural gift from God is, to me, ridiculous.

I am one of the biggest fans of Betty Edwards' work, having learned to draw in five days by the "Right Brain" method. I have found the "Artist Within" book less helpful than the others, however. In it, Edwards uses many of the same drawing approaches (exercises that I love and which have made all the difference to me) as "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," but now she applies them to creative problem solving.

I agree completely with her premises and support the approach. On the other hand, as a book, this one is less helpful than the original precisely because it reuses so much of the same material. I would have liked more theory and exploration of just how learning to draw makes a difference in other parts of one's life.

So, I'm not sure I'd recommend this book wholeheartedly, unless you just can't get enough of the "Right Brain" drawing approach. Get "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," first. Then decide if you want more elaboration with a different spin.

This is a book that will change your life. The brilliant Betty Edwards has given us a way to access that creativity that is within each of us. This book, in tandem with her groundbreaking "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," are perhaps two of the most influential books of their time.