If you ask the average person to make an effort to produce a really, really bad drawing, he/she will definitely come up with something better than the drawings in this book, for, one thing is sure: the quality of the drawings in this book are very hard to match.

I fully agree with the first reviewer of this book. To begin with, the drawings are so poor that I am still not sure whether the author was making an experiment to test the readers' gullibilty before the printed page, or whether she actually believed that such drawings are of quality? I honestly cannot fathom how someone would dare present such awfully ugly drawings as a model to be used for "guidance"!

Further annoying is the author's constant use of names of painting masters (Matisse/Picasso, and more) for her own amazingly dreadful drawings, calling some of them "a study on Matisse's...." etc. etc.! In addition, her own incessant admiration of her own work with constant expressions like the "loveliness/beauty" of this drawing or that, or about "the power of beauty to heal" written under a dreadful drawing with just one pale ugly color that looks more like someone was sick over it.

While the author repeats how "all things are related, everything is one", her book demonstrates the exact opposite: her very titles and headings, borrowing words from yoga and zen, are completely unrelated to the content and actually distract from it, and, her drawings do not display ANY of the principles of balance and beauty she talks about and, due to their unbelievable ugliness, do a disservice to the few interesting points which she makes once in a while, and which you will find if you sift carefully through a lot of dross and completely ignore her titles/headings and classifications.

In order to get a crumb of benefit out of this book, you have to be extremely selective and very patient, because what is worthwhile in the end might be no more than a handful of pages. Besides, you have to have a strong stomach to take all those drawings.

If you really, really must have it, buy it used, as you will really, really regret having paid its full price!

Okay, so now there's the "YOGA OF DRAWING" "New & Improved!" Just like laundry detergent. There must surely be a catchy drawing book title combined with the perennial "ZEN" in the title going to press each month, and it's ridiculous. This book uses YOGA in the title to sell.

[by the way, Carbonetti DOES have an art book with "ZEN" in the title! ]

****** PLEASE KEEP IN MIND...that what I am going to say here, NOT that either art instruction or Yoga instruction is wrong; but that it is counterproductive to combine beginning drawing with notions of YOGA, etc. If you remember this, my review will be studied with greater clarity. *******

The author cannot distinguish between teaching art or teaching metaphysics.

As a result of this MOVING-IN-TWO-DIRECTIONS-AT-ONCE gimmick, students face the dilemma of studying art and metaphysics. Reason might suggest that Art cannot be, de facto, equated with metaphysics. Wisdom might suggest not attempting both simultaneously. Book sales might benefit from the combination; but that's a benefit to the author, not the book buyer.

Any human being is lucky to obtain mastery in a single field of endeavour, let alone presume to have mastered DRAWING and YOGA both; but one of these corny: A-WINK-IS-AS-GOOD-AS-A-NOD drawing titles comes out every month or so, and rarely does one of them offer justification or improvement on basic drawing texts already in print. The author who finds the subject of DRAWING, alone and of itself, inadequate to publish, must join DRAWING with something exotic, foreign and fantastical to con the general public.

The author, by combining religion with "drawing" in the title, suggests that DRAWING, of, and by itself, without reference to personal religion, metaphysics, or New Age hucksterism, is INSUFFICIENT. This is an insult to DRAWING, and art generally, because DRAWING is sufficient unto itself; And any author who must parade their religious beliefs before the general public is merely relying upon a common gimmick to sell books. Selling books, and teaching drawing, are two distinctly different things, and where there is one, you will probably not find the other.

I am very sympathetic to religion, inclusive of YOGA, and personal healing as well. However, the essence of YOGA [and why am I even discussing YOGA in an ART BOOK !!!???!! ] is that it is:

A SYSTEM OF INITIATION.

In Western Society however, it arrives watered-down, as a mere system of physical exercises, (Aerobics, if you will...) without the TEACHER, without spiritual initiation. (You can read precisely what I'm affirming here in Wikipedia. Look up YOGA)
YOGA means "union" and it is about balancing the spiritual and physical.

Also, the idea of YOGA is used in its most general sense by the author, without clarification as to whether it is: RAJA YOGA, KARMA YOGA, BHAKTI YOGA, KUNDALINI YOGA, etc. each of which is suited to specific personality types and are intended to accomplish specific results. Without a teacher suggesting to you what specific YOGA type you need for further development, the student could end up wasting his entire lifetime, or worse, producing harmful results for himself. This is MARKETING American-style at its worst.

Moreover, even in the context of spirituality, the suggestion of YOGA is not an embrace of an entire spiritual system. It is an embrace in part, a most superficial affair. An "act" that wears thin with time.

There are two common fallacies in the mind, that are exploitable here. Both are so subtle as to be generally invisible.

(1) The KNOW-IT-ALL Fallacy:

Here, the authorship implies that if we KNOW-EVERTHING, we can produce powerful art. Certainly, if one "knows about" art, and "knows about" Yoga also, isn't that just about ...everything? Sure it is. Consider how many How-to-Draw books carry on about ZEN, QUANTUM PHYSICS and other powerful and incomprehensible abstractions. The implication is that if we KNOW EVERYTHING we will find the power to produce powerful art.

(2) The BE-IT-ALL, or WHOLENESS or WELLNESS Fallacy:

Here, the authorship implies that, if we are WELL, or are ...HEALED by spiritual practices, then we will be WHOLE. Only if we are WHOLE, can we acquire 'spiritual power' and thus produce powerful art. It just is not so.


These fallacies dwell in the hearts and in the minds of many people, and that vulnerability is exploitable by authors. Hence, they offer languange about HEALING or METAPHYSICS to their readership. Their readership, believing that powerful art is produced by people who are either KNOW-IT-ALLS or BE-IT-ALLS, in some holistic sense, buy these books by the truckloads. What's wrong with this?

Even a little reflection upon the most powerful art known to us, will demonstrate exactly the opposite. Powerful art is not only NOT the product of men and women who lived "balance" in their lives, nor harmony either. They neither KNEW EVERYTHING, nor were WHOLE or WELL. The Rennaissance Masters were not "saints". Van Gogh is a wonderful example of emotional imbalance, and might even have been poisoned by some poisonous batch distillation of the popular new drink, ABSINTHE, and Picasso was such a sensualist that any reference to "spirituality" is laughable. Likewise with Modigliani. Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a heroin overdose. Does the phrase, "Bohemian Lifestyle" ring a bell?

The art instruction Carbonetti offers here is too brief, and too pedestrian to distinguish it from other art instruction that at the very least, is not split into two distinctly different purposes in a single book. This is a case of an author looking for some catchy "angle" that will sell a book.

But the simple drawing technique is also useful. Great if you want to paint or draw expressively. The pictures are inspiring.

This is a terrific book for those people who don't have fabulous drawing skills. It helps you understand how you can create wonderful drawings that are expressive even if you don't draw. It's a wonderful companion to Jeanne Carbonetti's other two books.

This is a terrific book for those people who don't have fabulous drawing skills. It helps you understand how you can create wonderful drawings that are expressive even if you don't draw. It's a wonderful companion to Jeanne Carbonetti's other two books.