What a wonderful thing it is to google an author just to find their book is already sitting on your shelf. I have Fa (my late grandfather who was a chemist/artist and great fan of Hans Hofmann) to thank for this. The Natural Way to Draw was one of a few art books, once belonging to Fa, that were passed along to me. Sadly, this is the first time I’ve given it much notice. It has been quietly waiting in boxes, passing to and from various book cases, the cover gracing hands but the insides left unexplored- until today.
Kimon Nicolaides was a Greek American artist and teacher (not to mention a camouflage designer during World War I). As I learned tonight, he has been highly influential in how we teach drawing today. Nicolaides' warm personality shines through casually honest writing. Paired with a great knowledge of his field enables him to guide others through an area of the arts that, oh too often, comes off as a bit ‘higher than thou’.
“If you have ever tired it, you will realize how difficult it is to speak clearly and concisely of art. One is always very close to contradictions. However, you will not simply read the things I have to say. You will act upon them, work at them, and therefore I believe that each of you will arrive at a proper index of these ideas through a natural and individual application of them. Each of you, in a way peculiar to yourself, will add something to them. The book has been planned to that end.”
