How to Draw Japan

About this book

Draw the mountain itself — not the view, not the season, the form. This book teaches 100 mountains in six unchanging steps: one honest profile taken apart into summit, ridge, saddle, spur and shoulder; the mountain opened in cross-section to show strata, folds and faults; twenty famous peaks of Japan drawn as form portraits — Fuji's measurable sweep, Yari's spear point, the wall of Hotaka, Tsurugi's saw edge, Kaikoma's granite cap — recognisable by proportion alone; volcanoes as structure, from the stratovolcano in section (strata, crater, throat and chamber) to somma rims, breached craters, lava domes and a young cone on an old crater floor; every steep part drawn separately — arête, spire, cliff, scree, couloir, cornice, bergschrund — and finally whole ranges drawn as single gestures: chains, walls, massifs and traverses. Every lesson declares its height, its base and its one ruling line before a line is drawn, and ends with a practice page. No climbers, no clouds, no scenery: just the mountain, at its true proportions, until you can draw it from memory.