Why am I passionate about this?

A practising artist for more than 60 years, my main source of inspiration is people and the natural world. I work in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Drawing is the foundation of my art and I always keep a sketchbook handy. As a left-hander in a right-handed world, drawing became my main means of expression from an early age, when I instinctively wrote back-to-front with my left hand but was made to use my right. In addition to my art practice, I have taught drawing and developed a teaching method based on 7 principles that are outlined in Draw Like da Vinci.  


I wrote

Draw Like Da Vinci

By Susan Dorothea White,

Book cover of Draw Like Da Vinci

What is my book about?

Leonardo da Vinci's drawings are among the most magnificent ever created. But how did he achieve his effects? Choose his…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

The books I picked & why

Book cover of Leonardo Da Vinci: A Singular Vision

Susan Dorothea White Why did I love this book?

This is my favorite book on drawings by Leonardo, with the best from his broad œuvre of head studies, figures, children, anatomy, plants, horses, mechanics, buildings, water dynamics, and aerial landscapes. The quality of the color reproductions is superb. The text is insightful with quotes from Leonardo. I love the silverpoint figure drawings with white chalk highlights on blue paper that Leonardo prepared himself. Leonardo’s understanding of anatomy, combined with the flesh-colored line of oxidized metal, make the figures leap from the page.

I was astonished to learn that Leonardo used black chalk under-drawing in his anatomical ink studies. The correlation between Leonardo’s studies and his paintings is enlightening – in drawings for The Last Supper, Leonardo expresses the anguish in the head of St Philip with a few skillful lines and captures the look of disdain in the head of Judas in red chalk on red ground. I learned that Leonardo’s iconic drawing of hands was a study for Ginevra de’Benci. She lost her arms when the lower third of the painting was sawn off. This revelation inspired my drawing Surgery Reattaching Ginevra de’Benci’s Arms and Hands.

By Martin Clayton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Leonardo Da Vinci as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The full range of Leonardo's genius is revealed in this elegant book, which reproduces for the first time many unfamiliar drawings from the masters hand as well as more widely known works.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was arguably the greatest draftsman in the history of Western art. Best known as a painter, he also excelled as sculptor, architect, musician, anatomist, botanist, engineer, geologist, and mapmaker. But since he completed few of his projects, most of his work is known to us only through his drawings and notes. This selection of 100 sheets from the collection at Windsor Castle are presented…


Book cover of Hokusai: The Great Picture Book of Everything

Susan Dorothea White Why did I love this book?

Hokusai, my favorite artist, described himself as "the man mad about drawing." Mad about drawing myself, I never cease to learn from studying his woodblock prints. This publication contains a rare collection of Hokusai’s original brush drawings. Most of his countless originals were lost when they were glued to a woodblock during the printing process. This book covers the scope of Hokusai’s subject matter of landscapes, flora and fauna, everyday life, and the supernatural, and reveals his sense of humor. I consider Hokusai ‘The Leonardo of the East’ – both artists drew everything with masterful skill and shared a common humanity. Hokusai’s skill with brush alone is phenomenal. He creates subtle tones, expressive movement and varies the thickness of his line down to a single hair.  

By Timothy Clark,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hokusai as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) is considered by many to be Japan’s greatest artist. During his seventy-year career, he produced a considerable oeuvre of some 3,000 color prints, illustrations for over 200 books, hundreds of drawings, and over 1,000 paintings. This exciting collection of 103 exquisite small drawings were made for an unpublished book called The Great Picture Book of Everything – featuring wide-ranging subjects from depictions of religious, mythological, historical, and literary figures to animals, birds, flowers, and other natural phenomena, as well as landscapes. They are dominated by subjects that relate to ancient China and India, also Southeast and Central…


Ad

Book cover of Harry and Arthur: Truman, Vandenberg, and the Partnership That Created the Free World

Harry and Arthur by Lawrence J. Haas,

With Franklin Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, Vice President Harry Truman and Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican leader on foreign policy, inherited a world in turmoil. With Europe flattened and the Soviets emerging as America’s new adversary, Truman and Vandenberg built a tight, bipartisan partnership at a bitterly partisan time…

Book cover of Australian Aboriginal art

Susan Dorothea White Why did I love this book?

I have a deep admiration for the art of indigenous Australians with their connection to nature and mother earth. I grew up in outback Australia near a pre-historic sacred site with an awe-inspiring cave drawing of a giant serpent. This book, written by several scholars, is a comprehensive resource on Aboriginal art. The illustrations cover traditional bark paintings and cave drawings, some dating back more than 30,000 years. The authors’ analysis of symbols is informative. I consider Aboriginal artists to be the first anatomists. Long before Leonardo, they were drawing the inner structures and organs of humans and animals. 

Book cover of The Life and Work of Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757): The Queen of Pastel

Susan Dorothea White Why did I love this book?

I discovered the extraordinary artist Rosalba Carriera when I saw an exhibition of her pastel portrait drawings in Venice a decade ago. She has perfected the art of pastel drawing with a technique that is so skillful that the transition in color and tone is undetectable – she virtually paints with pastel. I find her portraits as good as the oils by famous artists. Rosalba Carriera deserves to be better known – I was thrilled when this book on her life and work was published in English in 2020. Studying her work helped me to understand the limitless possibilities with pastel and to improve my own technique.

By Angela Oberer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Life and Work of Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Life and Work of Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757): The Queen of Pastel is the first extensive biographical narrative in English of Rosalba Carriera. It is also the first scholarly investigation of the external and internal factors that helped to create this female painter's unique career in eighteenth-century Europe. It documents the difficulties, complications, and consequences that arose then -- and can also arise today -- when a woman decides to become an independent artist. This book contributes a new, in-depth analysis of the interplay between society's expectations, generally accepted codices for gendered behaviour, and one single female painter's astute strategies…


Ad

Book cover of Traumatization and Its Aftermath: A Systemic Approach to Understanding and Treating Trauma Disorders

Traumatization and Its Aftermath by Antonieta Contreras,

A fresh take on the difference between trauma and hardship in order to help accurately spot the difference and avoid over-generalizations.

The book integrates the latest findings in brain science, child development, psycho-social context, theory, and clinical experiences to make the case that trauma is much more than a cluster…

Book cover of Käthe-Kollwitz-Sammlung der Kreissparkasse Köln: Katalog Der Handzeichnungen (The Kollwitz Collection of the Kreissparkasse, Cologne)

Susan Dorothea White Why did I love this book?

This is an exceptional book on Kollwitz’s drawings with outstanding reproductions of rarely seen works. I find Kollwitz’s humanity deeply moving. As an Expressionist, she champions the plight of the poor and oppressed, especially women and children. Working in the mediums of sculpture and drawing, Kollwitz is a master, or rather a mistress of the human form. A sculptor myself, I appreciate the depth of form in her figure drawing and her use of broad strokes to define planes.  

Explore my book 😀

Draw Like Da Vinci

By Susan Dorothea White,

Book cover of Draw Like Da Vinci

What is my book about?

Leonardo da Vinci's drawings are among the most magnificent ever created. But how did he achieve his effects? Choose his materials? Define his approach? Susan Dorothea White, an internationally known artist and teacher, helps students gain an invaluable understanding of Da Vinci's techniques for depicting the human form and dealing with perspective, line weight, light, shade, and character.

The basic principles of drawing are explained through Leonardo's art. White analyses the fundamentals into seven Ps of drawing – Perspective, Proportion, Perception, Position, Placement, Planes, Priority. Illustrated with drawings by Leonardo and over 100 of her drawings, the book contains exercises on different techniques, including goldpoint and chalk on emery paper. Being a left-hander helped White decipher Leonardo's technique.

Book cover of Leonardo Da Vinci: A Singular Vision
Book cover of Hokusai: The Great Picture Book of Everything
Book cover of Australian Aboriginal art

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,893

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 You might also like…

Book cover of Native Nations: A Millennium in North America

Native Nations by Kathleen DuVal,

A magisterial history of Indigenous North America that places the power of Native nations at its center, telling their story from the rise of ancient cities more than a thousand years ago to fights for sovereignty that continue today

Book cover of The Atrahasis Epic: A Sumerian tale of irrigation, floods, and the creation of man

The Atrahasis Epic by Ken Goudsward,

Contrary to popular belief, the Atrahasis Epic is not merely a flood myth. In some ways it can be called a creation myth. However, it does not concern itself with the creation of the universe or even of the earth. Rather, the created work in question is one of culture…

Interested in Leonardo da Vinci, anatomy, and Aboriginal Australians?

Anatomy 46 books