Artist and founder of The Painting School Sara Woster invites readers into the vibrant world of painting as a creative practice powerful enough to transform our lives. Sara Woster is a painter, teacher, and art evangelist. She believes in art as a form of mindfulness, a ritual for healing, and an outlet for self-expression. In Painting Can Save Your Life, Woster welcomes readers into this transformative art form, inviting them to pick up a brush and discover how painting can help you see the world in a whole new way. Weaving soup-to-nuts instruction on how to paint—from choosing the right materials to painting the human body—with her own story of discovering a passion for painting, this book includes: simple and easy techniques for painters of all skill levels playful and challenging painting exercises tips on how to build a creative community using art insights on how to use painting to cultivate a sense of calm in a stressful world Part how-to-paint, part sheer inspiration, Painting Can Save Your Life is a wise and inspiring guide to the power of painting.

A must-have reference book for today's artists and art students. Every artist needs to learn and master the still life. Written by a well-known artist and expert instructor, The Art of Still Life offers a comprehensive, contemporary approach to the subject that instructs artists on the foundation basics and advanced techniques they need for successful drawing and painting. In addition to Casey's stunning paintings, the work of over fifty past and present masters is included, so that the book will do double duty as a hardworking how-to manual and a visual treasure trove of some of the finest still life art throughout history and being created today.

Here, Elkins argues that alchemists and painters have similar relationships to the substances they work with. Both try to transform the substance, while seeking to transform their own experience.

A unique system for jump-starting artistic creativity, encouraging experimentation and growth, and increasing sales for artists of all levels, from novices to professionals. Have you landed in a frustrating rut? Are you having trouble selling paintings in galleries, getting bogged down by projects you can’t seem to finish or abandon, or finding excuses to avoid working in the studio? Author Carol Marine knows exactly how you feel—she herself suffered from painter’s block, until she discovered “daily painting.” The idea is simple: do art (usually small) often (how often is up to you), and if you’d like, post and sell it online. Soon you’ll find that your block dissolves and you’re painting work you love—and more of it than you ever thought possible! With her encouraging tone and useful exercises, Marine teaches you to: -Master composition and value -Become confident in any medium including oil painting, acrylic painting, watercolors, and other media -Choose subjects wisely -Stay fresh and loose -Photograph, post, and sell your art online -Become connected to the growing movement of daily painters around the world

Painting from Life: Explorations in Watercolor chronicles the progression of artist Douglas Lew as he takes on the most eternal and challenging of themes: the nude. Working side-by-side with other artists in the context of life-drawing sessions, Lew struck out on his own heightened pace of exploration as he grappled with the ultimate problem: How to draw and paint a nude model accurately and expressively within the time limits of a single pose, which were sometimes as short as five or ten minutes. Having started with single line drawings, Lew soon realized he could use watercolour to render volume more quickly. He then began to build paintings, sorting out composition, light, shapes, and colour as he worked. Once he mastered the nude, Lew sought to be freed from it: In a delightful game of hide-and-seek he created seductive abstractions, leaving parts of the figure visible. At the hear of the book

This portfolio of oil and acrylic paintings by award-winning California landscape painter Rick J. Delanty is accompanied by inspirational short essays, each focusing on the theme of beauty. Personal anecdotes from the artist's life experience of over 40 years as a professional fine artist give the reader insight into the artist's creative process. Hardcover, 120 pages.

The equivalent of a foundation course in traditional oil painting for beginning to intermediate level artists, this in-depth book uses the still life as a practical way to master oil techniques. The still life is a practical, forgiving genre as it does not require the likeness of a portrait or the accurate proportions of the figure and, unlike the landscape, it doesn’t change with the weather. Instead, it gives aspiring artists ample time to study and the opportunity to look closer. It can be used as a purely formal subject for drawing and painting techniques, or a platform for emotional expression using personal symbolism and imagery. However, though the still life is used throughout as a teaching tool, this is first and foremost a book about oil painting. It begins with simple compositions that build to more complex arrangements. Starting with essential information on how to best set up your studio—including lighting, equipment, materials (paints, solvents, brushes, mediums), and preparing your canvas and paper for oil painting—Still Life Painting Atelier then offers concrete lessons in a logical progressive sequence, with step-by-step illustrations, finished paintings, diagrams and tips. Chapters cover: • How to address composition through thumbnail sketches and line drawings • Using underpainting to study the characteristics of light and shade • The basics of color theory and color mixing • How to use a variety of brushes to create sharp and soft edges • Techniques that are helpful when painting metal and glass • How to apply glazing and scumbling to bring luminosity and texture

From T.J. Clark comes this provocative study of the origins of modern art in the painting of Parisian life by Edouard Manet and his followers. The Paris of the 1860s and 1870s was a brand-new city, recently adorned with boulevards, cafés, parks, Great Exhibitions, and suburban pleasure grounds—the birthplace of the habits of commerce and leisure that we ourselves know as "modern life." A new kind of culture quickly developed in this remade metropolis, sights and spectacles avidly appropriated by a new kind of "consumer": clerks and shopgirls, neither working class nor bourgeois, inventing their own social position in a system profoundly altered by their very existence. Emancipated and rootless, these men and women flocked to the bars and nightclubs of Paris, went boating on the Seine at Argenteuil, strolled the island of La Grande-Jatte—enacting a charade of community that was to be captured and scrutinized by Manet, Degas, and Seurat. It is Clark's cogently argued (and profusely illustrated) thesis that modern art emerged from these painters' attempts to represent this new city and its inhabitants. Concentrating on three of Manet's greatest works and Seurat's masterpiece, Clark traces the appearance and development of the artists' favorite themes and subjects, and the technical innovations that they employed to depict a way of life which, under its liberated, pleasure-seeking surface, was often awkward and anxious. Through their paintings, Manet and the Impressionists ask us, and force us to ask ourselves: Is the freedom offered by modernity a myth? Is modern life heroic or monotonous, glittering or tawdry, spectacular or dull? The Painting of Modern Life illuminates for us the ways, both forceful and subtle, in which Manet and his followers raised these questions and doubts, which are as valid for our time as for the age they portrayed.

Serious visual artists can now easily understand and apply the secret geometry that masters used to create remarkable art. Superior mathematical skills aren’t required because there are hundreds of excellent step-by-step diagrams to explain everything with simplicity. Learn how the ancient and modern masters used dynamic symmetry to promote unity, movement, rhythm, and strength. These qualities, along with many others, allowed their art to have visual clarity, impact, and stand the test of time. This is an essential book for painters, photographers, sculptors, and cinematographers that hold composition and design with a high priority. For far too long, artists have been stuck with the basic tools of artistic composition, like the rule of thirds and leading lines. Unfortunately, we’re incapable of reaching the master level if all we know are the basics. Powerful tools like dynamic symmetry and other composition techniques have been kept a secret from all of us. It’s time to learn of them, push past any plateau that stands in our way, and finally unlock our true potential!

Men to Avoid in Art and Life pairs classical fine art with modern captions that epitomize the spirit of mansplaining. This hilarious book perfectly captures those relatable moments when a man explains to a woman a subject about which he knows considerably less than she does. Situations include men sharing keen insight on the female anatomy, an eloquent defense of catcalling, or offering sage advice about horseback riding to the woman who owns the horse. • These less qualified men of antiquity dish out mediocrity as if it's pure genius • For the women who have endured overbearing men over the centuries • Written with hilariously painful accuracy "Now, when you're riding a horse, you need to make sure to keep a good grip on the reins." "These are my horses." Through cringe-induced empathy, this timeless gift book of shared experiences unites women across history in one of the most powerful forms of resistance: laughter. • Started as a Twitter thread and quickly gained widespread popularity. • Makes a perfect book for women and feminists with a wry sense of humor, millennials, anyone who loves memes and Internet humor, as well as history and art buffs. • You'll love this book if you love books like Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, Milk and Vine: Inspirational Quotes from Classic Vines by Emily Beck, and Awards For Good Boys: Tales Of Dating, Double Standards, And Doom by Shelby Lorman.