Analyzes various components of beauty - unity, simplicity, color, design, rhythm, etc., from the practical standpoint of the artist. For amateurs.

Andrew Loomis (1892-1959) is revered amongst artists - including comics superstar Alex Ross - for his mastery of drawing. His first book, Fun With a Pencil, published in 1939 is a wonderfully crafted and engaging introduction to drawing, cartooning, and capturing the essence of a subject all while having fun. With delightful step-by-step instruction from Professor Blook, Loomis s charming alter ego on the page. Andrew Loomis was born in 1892. After studying art he moved to Chicago, eventually opening his own studio, working in editorial and advertising for most of the top clients at the time including Kellogg s, Coca Cola, Lucky Strike and more. He also became renowned as an art teacher and his instructional books on realist illustration and art are acclaimed classics in the field. He died in 1959.

I tried to make sense of the Four Books, until love arrived, and it all became a single syllable.

LEARNING HOW TO CAPTURE SUCH QUALITY HAS NEVER BEEN EASIER!Inside you'll find guidelines for rendering accurate skin tones in a variety of media, including watercolor, oil and pastel. You'll begin with a review of the five essential painting elements (drawing, value, color, composition and edges), then learn how light and color influence the appearance of skin tones. Best-selling artist Chris Saper provides the advice and examples that make every lesson and technique easy to understandâ€"immediately improving the quality of your work. You'll discover how to: • Paint the four major skin color groups (Caucasian, African American, Asian, and Hispanic) • Refine these colors into dozens of possible variations within each group • Select your palette and mix hues for clean, beautiful colors • Determine the color and temperature of light that falls on your subject • Paint direct and indirect sunlight, artificial light and highlights of light • Master the four elements that determine color in shadow • Use photographic references when you can't paint directly from life You'll also find seven step-by-step demonstrations and an appendix of sample color charts for each major skin type under a range of lighting variations. It's all you need to bring your portraits to life!

Mark Doty's prose has been hailed as "tempered and tough, sorrowing and serene" (The New York Times Book Review) and "achingly beautiful" (The Boston Globe). In Still Life with Oysters and Lemon he offers a stunning exploration of our attachment to ordinary things-how we invest objects with human store, and why.

Contains seven essays. Three of them use only pictures. Examines the relationship between what we see and what we know.

A landscape painting guide for oil painters that breaks landscapes down into component elements from nature, and showcases tools and techniques used by classic and modern oil painters for bringing these scenes to life. Landscape painting is one of the most popular subjects for painters working in the medium of oils--from classic masters to contemporary artists. In The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, established Watson-Guptill author and noted instructor/painter Suzanne Brooker presents the fundamentals necessary for mastering landscape oil painting, breaking landscapes down into component parts: sky, terrain, trees, and water. Each featured element builds off the previous, with additional lessons on the latest brushes, paints, and other tools used by artists. Key methods like observation, rendering, and color mixing are supported by demonstration paintings and samples from a variety of the best landscape oil painters of all time. With The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, oil painters looking to break into landscape painting or enhance their work will find all the necessary ingredients for success.

Because nature is so expansive and complex, so varied in its range of light, landscape painters often have to look further and more deeply to find form and structure, value patterns, and an organized arrangement of shapes. In Landscape Painting, Mitchell Albala shares his concepts and practices for translating nature's grandeur, complexity, and color dynamics into convincing representations of space and light. Concise, practical, and inspirational, Landscape Painting focuses on the greatest challenges for the landscape artist, such as: • Simplification and Massing: Learn to reduce nature's complexity by looking beneath the surface of a subject to discover the form's basic masses and shapes.• Color and Light: Explore color theory as it specifically applies to the landscape, and learn the various strategies painters use to capture the illusion of natural light.• Selection and Composition: Learn to select wisely from nature's vast panorama. Albala shows you the essential cues to look for and how to find the most promising subject from a world of possibilities. The lessons in Landscape Painting—based on observation rather than imitation and applicable to both plein air and studio practice—are accompanied by painting examples, demonstrations, photographs, and diagrams. Illustrations draw from the work of more than 40 contemporary artists and such masters of landscape painting as John Constable, Sanford Gifford, and Claude Monet. Based on Albala's 25 years of experience and the proven methods taught at his successful plein air workshops, this in-depth guide to all aspects of landscape painting is a must-have for anyone getting started in the genre, as well as more experienced practitioners who want to hone their skills or learn new perspectives.

One of the foremost artists of 19th century France, Alexandre Cabanel (1823 - 1889), will be featured in his first exhibition at the Wallraf in Spring 2011. In cooperation with Musée Fabre in Montpellier, the Wallraf in Cologne will present over 60 works by a man who rose from the rank of a lowly carpenter's son to become court painter to Napoleon III. In order to give these graceful works by the last of the great salon painters just the right ambience, the Wallraf has secured the services of a distinguished compatriot of Cabanel: Star designer Christian Lacroix has been commissioned to design a special interior exclusively for the exhibition. Lacroix studied at the Academy of Arts in Montpellier the hometown of Cabanel and regards the painter as one of his all-time favourites. Exhibition: Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Köln (4.2-15.5.2011).

Examining the elements of good composition in painting, this book looks at each factor in turn, including shape, line, space, tone, texture, object size, and colour. Each point is illustrated via simple diagrammatic line drawings, and through the work of 24 artists the author demonstrates good composition in over 140 finished paintings. Key points, and some of the author's ideas, are highlighted in the tips section which closes each chapter.