Inspired to paint or enthralled by the world of portraiture A Little Book of Portraits: Beyond the Canvas accompanies the celebrated Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year series and includes sixty-four of the finest portraits painted during the competition with illuminating commentary from the three series judges: Tai Shan Schierenberg, Kathleen Soriano and Kate Bryan. The paintings featured in this book, include portraits of famous sitters, such as Juliet Stevenson and John Humphrys, self-portraits of the artists themselves and commissioned paintings of Hilary Mantel and Sophie Dahl. The judges approach each painting from a different angle and with a unique voice, reflecting their differing specialities within the art world. Between them they uncover the approach, style and effectiveness of each portrait whilst discussing the techniques critical to the success of the painter's brushwork, likeness and perspective. With a wide range of different mediums from oil to charcoal or even soil, the book takes us behind the finished portrait and into the myriad of processes that creates one great work of art. A Little Book of Portraits reveals the skills behind the artist's brush that makes timeless and inventive portraiture.

In this widely praised follow-up to her National Book Award-winning first volume of memoirs, An Unfinished Woman, the legendary playwright Lillian Hellman looks back at some of the people who, wittingly or unwittingly, exerted profound influence on her development as a woman and a writer. The portraits include Hellman's recollection of a lifelong friendship that began in childhood, reminiscences that formed the basis of the Academy Award-winning film Julia.

Fourteen artists and picture book illustrators present self-portraits and brief descriptions that explore their varied ethnic origins, their work, and their feelings about themselves.

Presents portraits of the people whose lives were lost in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center as published in "The New York Times," including four hundred additional portraits published since February 2002.

Billy Showell is a well-respected contemporary artist whose watercolour flower portraits have earned her the respect of watercolour artists all over the world. Worked to the same degree of accuracy as traditional botanical paintings, Billy's compositions are given a more contemporary twist, combining her unique eye for design with her love of flowers. In this book, 40 flower portraits are presented, arranged in alphabetical order, each one accompanied by small studies, details, step-by-step instructions and the colour mixes used to accomplish the finished work. At the start of the book there are useful sections on the materials and equipment needed and the main techniques used, including wet-into-wet, colour blending, lifting out, layering glazes, dry brushing and colour mixing, and at the end of the book Billy gives her own unique slant on composition and discusses the importance of creating a sketchbook. Whether you love to paint, or simply love flowers, this book will delight and inspire you.

"As long as humans have been alive, we have drawn." ~Justin Maas Drawing is the most essential of all visual arts. Everyone, from sculptors to painters, draws in one form or another. It is also the simplest and most affordable form of artistic expression. All you need is a pencil and paper to make something magical. But to create a successful portrait, one must understand how to capture a person’s likeness--their spirit--and portray it in graphite. In Drawing Realistic Pencil Portraits, artist and teacher Justin Maas provides a step-by-step guide for both novice and experience portraitists looking to enhance their skillsets. His tried-and-true techniques for mastering the basics and accurately rendering proportion, placement and nuance when drawing the head and face will help you add energy and life to your drawings and create recognizable and moving portraits. In this book: • Lessons in drawing basics, including value, line, shadow, light and anatomy • How to work from both reference photographs and live models, plus tips for selecting your subjects • Step-by-step demos to create crucial features, such as eyes, ears, and hair • Methods for building successful portraits, including the grid method, the tracing method and the author's own Maas method • 15 detailed step-by-step portrait-drawing demos with subjects of different ages, genders and ethnicities • A gallery of additional portrait examples in both black-and-white and full color

When we look at a painting hanging on an art gallery wall, we see only what the artist has chosen to disclose--the finished work of art. What remains mysterious is the process of creation itself--the making of the work of art. Everyone who has looked at paintings has wondered about this, and numerous efforts have been made to discover and depict the creative method of important artists. A Giacometti Portrait is a picture of one of the century's greatest artists at work. James Lord sat for eighteen days while his friend Alberto Giamcometti did his portrait in oil. The artist painted, and the model recorded the sittings and took photographs of the work in its various stages. What emerged was an illumination of what it is to be an artist and what it was to be Giacometti--a portrait in prose of the man and his art. A work of great literary distinction, A Giacometti Portrait is, above all, a subtle and important evocation of a great artist.

Meet the boy who can't stop creating art! He loves colours, shapes, textures and EVERYTHING inspires him: his socks, the contents of the fridge, even his cat gets a new coat (of paint!). But there's just one problem: his mum isn't quite so enthusiastic. In fact, she seems a little cross! But this boy has a plan to make his mum smile. He's about to create his finest piece yet and on a very grand scale . . . Funny, irreverent and perfect for creative children and adults, I Am An Artist by Marta Altés is a sharp, silly, fabulous book which shows that art is EVERYWHERE!

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An Edgar Award Nominee for Best First Novel Longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize Named a New York Times Best Crime Novel of 2022 Named A Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by *Marie Claire* *Washington Post* *Vulture* *NBC News* *Buzzfeed* *Veranda* *PopSugar* *Paste* *The Millions* *Bustle* *Crimereads* Goodreads* *Bookbub* *Boston.com* and more! "The thefts are engaging and surprising, and the narrative brims with international intrigue. Li, however, has delivered more than a straight thriller here, especially in the parts that depict the despair Will and his pals feel at being displaced, overlooked, underestimated, and discriminated against. This is as much a novel as a reckoning." —New York Times Book Review Ocean's Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums; about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity History is told by the conquerors. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now. Will Chen plans to steal them back. A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son who has always been his parents' American Dream. But when a mysterious Chinese benefactor reaches out with an impossible—and illegal—job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago. His crew is every heist archetype one can imag­ine—or at least, the closest he can get. A con artist: Irene Chen, a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of anything. A thief: Daniel Liang, a premed student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering major who races cars in her free time. A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they've cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down. Because if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars—and a chance to make history. But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they've dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted at­tempt to take back what colonialism has stolen. Equal parts beautiful, thoughtful, and thrilling, Portrait of a Thief is a cultural heist and an examination of Chinese American identity, as well as a necessary cri­tique of the lingering effects of colonialism.