David J. Rankin

Fast Sketching Techniques provides technical instruction on how to sketch quickly without sacrificing a lot of quality.

What drew me to the book is the quality of the sketches. Although not of a high drawing quality, they are very good given the time constraint and working environment.

The books strengths are the step-by-step approach to the drawing subjects, compositional considerations, and clarity of instructions. The numerous drawings are nice and fit well with the material.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't have enough material. The author is constantly repeating himself with only minor variations in subjects. He has a lot of anecdotal filler material that may be interesting, but doesn't support the theme of the book. I felt like this was a good magazine article that was stretched out to sell as a book.… (mer)