How to Draw Like Hokusai: Lessons from the Great Master gathers the drawing tutorials of the Edo-period master Katsushika Hokusai into an approachable step-by-step guide for adults.
About This Book
Best known for the woodblock prints of Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, Hokusai also produced a series of instructional drawings, originally published as Quick Lessons in Simplified Drawing. His method reduces each subject—a bird in flight, a flowering branch, a figure at work—to a handful of basic lines and geometric shapes, then builds it back up into a lively, characterful drawing.
This edition adds further intermediate stages to each lesson, so that even the more intricate subjects can be followed one stroke at a time. It is as much a window into how Hokusai saw and structured the world as it is a practical drawing book—a reminder that there is far more to his work than the great wave.
Key Features
- More than 60 subjects drawn from Hokusai's own lessons
- Each drawing broken down into simple lines and shapes
- Additional step-by-step stages added for this edition
- Suitable for beginners and experienced sketchers alike
What You'll Discover
- How to construct animals, birds and insects from basic forms—from swooping cranes to butterflies
- Techniques for drawing trees, cherry blossoms and flowers
- Hokusai's approach to the human figure, in motion and at rest
- The underlying geometry that gives ukiyo-e drawing its economy and energy
About the Author
Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) was a Japanese painter and printmaker working in the ukiyo-e tradition during the Edo period. Celebrated above all for Under the Wave off Kanagawa, he transformed the woodblock print through bold composition and dynamic perspective, and was a prolific teacher whose drawing manuals reached a wide audience in his lifetime.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Dimensions: 250 × 172 mm
- Pages: 80
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781915751492
- Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books (LOM Art)
Perfect For: artists, illustrators and designers interested in Japanese art, anyone learning to draw, and admirers of Hokusai looking for a hands-on way into his work.