Perspective Drawing

New ebook on the practice and science of drawing in perspective.  
Traite de Perspective a l'usage des Artistes

This book was the standard text on perspective for the 18th century.  It was written by the Astronomer and artist Edme-Sébastien Jeaurat.

It's in French but the engravings are so intelligently designed and so clearly executed that even if you don't read French you can understand the principles that are being explained. 

Each illustration has a page of explanatory text, sometimes the text exceeds the length of the facing page, in that case the engraving is repeated so that the student can look at the engraving while studying the text.

I have a long term goal of translating the text, if you are interested in collaborating on this - I must use web-based translation services and then try to make some sense of what comes of that - I'd like to hear from you.

Computer drafting programs make turning drawings into convincing perspective almost easy but I am convinced that a basic understanding is necessary to anyone who wants to draw well, regardless of the medium.

Traite de Perspective a l'usage des Artistes

by Edme-Sebastien Jeaurat
Ingenieur - Geographe du Roi.

This ebook is now available as a printed book.
Please visit Lulu.com.

Traite De Perspective a L'Usage Des Artistes the original book at Amazon.com for $1200.

Costume Design and Illustration

I found this book, published in 1918, which references some of the anatomy and drawing books available as ebooks.

From Costume design and illustration By Ethel Traphagen

"There are some books which may help the ambitious student in the life
class to observe and impress on the mind fundamental facts which it is
believed most life-class teachers will agree in thinking extremely useful.
Among these are Dunlop's Anatomical Diagrams, Figure Drawing by
Hatton, Anatomy in Art by J. S. Hartley, Richter, Marshall or Duval, and
Drawing the Human Figure by J. H. Vanderpoel. If the student is studying without an instructor, Practical Drawing, by Lutz, will be found helpful."

ETHEL H. TRAPHAGEN. - NEW YORK. 1918.

Another post on Artistic Costume Designing - by Louis Lipson.

How to Paint Watercolors by David Cox

David Cox, the English Watercolorist, published a book on how to paint watercolors in 1822 12 years after he was elected President of the Associated Artists of Water Colour. in 1812 he was elected an associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colour and a member the following year. He exhibited there most years until his death.

He was born in 1783 and studied drawing in his youth. He was apprenticed to a man named Fiedler in 1798 and learned to paint miniatures. He worked as an assistant scene painter in the theater from the time of Fiedler's death until 1808. After that he pursued his career as a landscape painter and drawing master.

This combination served him well in preparing his book.

An ebook of his book is available here: 
A Treatise on Landscape Painting in Water Colours

Steve Brodner Draws the Presidential Candidates

In this series of videos New Yorker cartoonist Steve Brodner draws caricatures of the presidential candidates in his inimitable style. You can see him develop the finished watercolor from the first sketch to the final touches.
See all the Youtube Videos of Steve Brodner Drawing the candidates

The Theory and Practice of Color

This book, published in 1918, is one of the early descriptions of the use of pigment.

It includes clear descriptions of primary, binary, and complimentary colors as well as tints, shades and grayed colors.

The best features are the charts of colors which are hand painted onto separate pieces of paper and glued to the pages in the original book making the colors vivid and true and easy to understand.

The Theory and Practice of Color by Bonnie E. Snow and Hugo B. Froehlich

A Treatise on the Science of Muscular Action

Here is a rare chance to own a 1794 edition of "A Treatise on the Science of Muscular Action."

An ebook is available at Figure-Drawings.com.

One is on sale on Ebay.
Click here to see a copy.

John Pugh, 18th century anatomist, was in the forefront of the science of physiotherapy. His book is illustrated with 15 steel engravings, and 15 line drawings of the muscle structure of the human body.

There was a 1972 facsimile reprint. One of these is for sale on Ebay also. Several copies are available on Abebooks.com.

Here is a link to a blog about the history of medicine with a post entitled  Eponims in Neuroanatomy which reviews many of the pioneers in anatomy.

Text at Amazon.com: A treatise on the science of muscular action. By John Pugh, anatomist.

Used copies of A Treatise on the Science of Muscular Action at Amazon.com.

Anatomical Illustration Then and Now

Saw the Body Worlds 2 exhibition. An amazing life size 3d version of the old anatomy books such as Bartolomeo Eustachius' "Explicatio Tabularum Anatomicarum."

I put together another ebook combining the works of Bartolomeo Eustachi and the work of Bernardino Genga. You can see it at http://figure-drawings.com/engravings.html

Eustachius - Wikipedia article - was born in the early 16th century and died in1574. He first described the small stirrup shaped bone in the ear and the canal connecting the ear to the mouth, which was given his name.

His work was not published until the beginning of the eighteenth century at the expense of Pope Clement XI.

Tabulae Anatomicae

See the copies for sale at Alibris. There are both 1714 editions and modern reprints.

The Body Worlds exhibits are more fortunate in showing their work, according to the website 25 million people have visited the exhibitions.

Links:

anatomie femme (1937)

anatomie

anatomie femme (1939)

anatomie femme (1903)

anatomie (1937)

anatomie femme (1903)

anatomie (~1900)

anatomie homme

A post about Bernardino Genga:

ANATOMIA PER USO ET INTELLIGENZA DEL DISEGNO - BERNARDINO GENGA - 1620 - 1690

Elements of Drawing

I found this old folder with two portfolios of figure drawings by Swiss Artist Edward Stiefel. He was active at the beginning of the twentieth century and was one of a number of artists who contributed to a series of portfolios about learning to draw published by Stehli Brothers.

This one includes first a section on figure drawing. Each page generally has a seated or standing figure illustrated along with another drawing which shows in red lines the kind of connections an artist sees when proportioning a figure.

The second section is a series of drawings of details of the figure, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms legs, hands feet.

http://figure-drawings.com/drawing-elements.html