For centuries, artists have learnt from the art that came before them. This book explains how to make paint meaningful and imaginative responses to the works of the masters. There are step by step examples to illustrate how to get started and how to use thumbnail pencil sketches. Advice is given on how to make larger and slower drawings, and then oil-sketch copies of the masters' work. The author studies the composition, rhythms and colours of the masters and uses their work as a source to practise and understand paintings, and as a springboard for your own discovery and invention. This book explores how a brave and imaginative use of colour can reinterpret paintings to achieve a greater and more expressive effect. Images from the earliest art to the twentieth century are included to feed your creative imagination, and examples of contemporary interpretations to show you the way. With over two hundred inspiring images, it is a unique guide to developing your own artistic voice while studying and enjoying some of the art world's greatest treasures.

Contrary to assumptions that drawing is a gift that cannot be learned, this book demonstrates that it is a highly teachable skill. As well as instructing the student how to draw, the book also serves as a visual handbook for artists and designers who need to express ideas through drawing. Each chapter addresses a key topic in drawing method and theory in order to improve technique and understanding. Issues such as perspective and the manipulation of tones and marks to make 3-D forms are tackled in a simple and direct way, with a wealth of drawings by the great masters of the medium, in addition to diagrams and tables. Each section also offers ways for the student to put into practice the ideas and concepts discussed. These 'Ideas to Explore' range from practical exercises in drawing to the selection of drawing surfaces (such as paper) and subjects to discovering ways of thinking.

Top Secrets for Beautiful Pastel Paintings Richard McKinley has been a professional artist for over 35 years. Factor in nearly as many years of teaching experience, and that adds up to a whole lot of know-how to share. In Pastel Pointers, he lays it all out: information on tools, materials, color, composition, landscape elements, finishes and more. Compiles the best of McKinley's popular Pastel Pointers blog and Pastel Journal columns Covers frequently asked questions ("How do I achieve natural-looking greens?") and simple solutions to common problems, such as excess pigment buildup Includes a chapter on "The Business of Pastels"—tips for framing, shipping, preparing for gallery shows, and otherwise representing your work in a professional manner This book covers everything from the fundamentals to get you going (how to lay out your palette, create an underpainting, evoke luminous effects) to inspirations that will keep you growing (plein air painting, working in a series, keeping a painting journal). Whether you're a beginner or an experienced painter anxious to explore the expressive possibilities of pastel, this is your guide to making the most of the medium.

Francis Bacon was one of the most powerful and enigmatic creative geniuses of the twentieth century. Immediately recognizable, his paintings continue to challenge interpretations and provoke controversy. Bacon was also an extraordinary personality. Generous but cruel, forthright yet manipulative, ebullient but in despair: He was the sum of his contradictions. This life, lived at extremes, was filled with achievement and triumph, misfortune and personal tragedy. In his revised and updated edition of an already brilliant biography, Michael Peppiatt has drawn on fresh material that has become available in the sixteen years since the artist’s death. Most important, he includes confidential material given to him by Bacon but omitted from the first edition. Francis Bacon derives from the hundreds of occasions Bacon and Peppiatt sat conversing, often late into the night, over many years, and particularly when Bacon was working in Paris. We are also given insight into Bacon’s intimate relationships, his artistic convictions and views on life, as well as his often acerbic comments on his contemporaries.

This deeply personal account of emotion and vulnerability draws upon anecdotes related to individual works of art to present a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past.

Master the art of oil painting with instruction on key topics and techniques such as materials, observation, references, forms, composition, color palettes, mixing colors, underpainting, working in layers, light effects, painting on location, textures and more from ten contributors, including beautiful gallery images of finished works. You will enjoy producing better artworks and getting professional-looking results by studying the methods of today's experts, such as Laurie Kersey, Camille Przewodek, Albert Handell, Kevin MacPherson, Phil Starke, Marc Hanson and more. These award-winning contributors have exhibited around the world and have distinguished publishing histories with F+W Media and others.

In her sumptuous photographic still lifes replete with flora, food, and artifacts, Paulette Tavormina creates intensely personal interpretations of timeless tableaux. With a painterly perspective reminiscent of Old Masters such as Francisco de Zurbarán, Adriaen Coorte, and Giovanna Garzoni, Tavormina’s meticulously orchestrated and lit photographs are boldly contemporary in their precision. Paulette Tavormina: Seizing Beauty presents the full array of her seductive and opulent still life series, heirs to the legacy of a cherished art tradition now seen through the lens of photography. Essays by art and photography scholars Silvia Malaguzzi, Mark Alice Durant, and Anke Van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven delve into the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources of Tavormina’s inspiration, her stance in art photography, and how the conventions of yesterday’s painting can transform to make visually stunning photographic art for today.

Reading art from a semiotic perspective, this book offers a new interpretation of the development of Chinese landscape painting and outlines a new framework for contemporary semiotics and critical theory. It will appeal to those interested in visual art, Chinese studies, critical theory, semiotics, and other relevant fields, and will allow the reader to learn how to put theory into the practice of studying art, how to give new life to an important theory, and how to acquire a new point of view in appreciating and enjoying art with a certain critical theory.

The discovery of this masterpiece Whistler's "Portrait of William Merritt Chase," along with another important Whistler painting, "Harmony in Black, No10," reveals exciting new discoveries on Whistler's artistic methods, from the Old Masters and the artistic truisms of the Renaissance. Documented analysis including x-ray examination, forensics and recognized paintings by Whistler's followers will confirm this portrait and "Harmony in Black, No10," with x-ray revealing two lost paintings. These Whistler paintings connect scholarship and identify paintings worthy of merit and what makes a masterpiece a masterpiece.

Jointly published by the Hayward Gallery and the University of California Press on the occasion of the exhibition "Francis Bacon: the human body " organized by the Hayward Gallery, London, 5 February-5 April, 1998.