Best of
Visual-Art

2016

A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen


David Hockney - 2016
    Here, in a collaboration with art critic Martin Gayford, he explores the many ways that artists have pictured the world, sharing sparkling insights and ideas that will delight every art lover and art maker. Readers who thrilled to Hockney’s Secret Knowledge know that he has an uncanny ability to get into the minds of artists. In A History of Pictures he covers far more ground, getting at the roots of visual expression and technique through hundreds of images—from cave paintings to frames from movies—that are reproduced. It’s a joyful celebration of one of humanity’s oldest impulses.

The Golden Secrets of Lettering: Letter Design from First Sketch to Final Artwork


Martina Flor - 2016
    With easy-to-understand instructions and guidelines, plenty of inspirational examples, and hundreds of hand sketches and illustrations, Martina Flor shows readers how to transform their initial lettering concepts and handdrawn sketches into a well-shaped, exquisite piece of digital lettering that can be sold and published. Readers learn how to train their "typographic eye" by studying lettering samples and the anatomy of letters; explore concepts of hierarchy, composition, and flourishes; and discover the many different ways of creating letter shapes. In addition, Flor explains the process of creating a lettering project step by step— from start to finish, from analog to digital—and gives valuable tips about how to make a career as a lettering artist.

The ABC of Custom Lettering: A Practical Guide to Drawing Letters


Ivan Castro - 2016
    This practical and inspirational workbook features easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions for hand drawing a range of letterforms, from Modern Roman and Gothic through to Latin, Script, and Interlocked. Offering traditional instruction methods with a modern twist, this reference also comes with gallery sections for inspiration and accompanying projects to practice your technique.

Clear Seeing Place: Studio Visits


Brian Rutenberg - 2016
    Brimming with the joy of process and a love of art history, Brian Rutenberg reveals the places, people, and experiences that led to the paint­ings for which he is well known today. This book is packed with ideas, observations, techniques, and career advice all thought­fully arranged into six sections designed to inspire artists of all levels, as well as anyone interested in creativity.Clear Seeing Place is a companion to the artist's popular YouTube series, "Brian Rutenberg Studio Visits," and is a love letter to painting written by a painter.

Adobe Photoshop CC Classroom in a Book (2017 Release)


Andrew Faulkner - 2016
    The 15 project-based lessons in this book show users step-by-step the key techniques for working in Photoshop and how to correct, enhance, and distort digital images, create image composites, and prepare images for print and the web. In addition to learning the key elements of the Photoshop interface, this completely revised CC (2017 release) edition covers features like new and improved search capabilities, Content-Aware Crop, Select and Mask, Face-Aware Liquify, designing with multiple artboards, and much more! The online companion files include all the necessary assets for readers to complete the projects featured in each chapter as well as ebook updates when Adobe releases new features for Creative Cloud customers. All buyers of the book get full access to the Web Edition: a Web-based version of the complete ebook enhanced with video and interactive multiple-choice quizzes. As always with the Classroom in a Book, Instructor Notes are available for teachers to download.

Vitamin P3: New Perspectives in Painting


Phaidon - 2016
    A central pillar of artistic practice, painting also has enduring appeal, dominating the art market. Vitamin P3 takes the conversation forward, spotlighting more than 100 outstanding artists who are engaging with – and pushing the boundaries of – the medium of paint.Artists include: Etel Adnan, Michael Armitage, Matt Connors, Genieve Figgis, Helen Johnson, Sanya Kantarovsky, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Oscar Murillo, Imran Qureshi, Nicolas Party, Mary Ramsden, Rosie Wylie.International experts include: Iwona Blazwick, Benjamin Buchloh, Marlene Dumas, Laura Hoptman, Geeta Kapur, Alex Katz, Tim Marlow, Sarah McCrory, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Beatrix Ruf, Nancy Spector.

Clear Seeing Place


Brian Rutenberg - 2016
    Brimming with the joy of process and a love of art history, Brian Rutenberg reveals the places, people, and experiences that led to the paintings for which he is well known today. This book is packed with ideas, observations, techniques, and career advice all thoughtfully arranged into six sections designed to inspire artists of all levels, as well as anyone interested in creativity.Clear Seeing Place is a companion to the artist’s popular YouTube series, “Brian Rutenberg Studio Visits,” and is a love letter to painting written by a painter.

Feminist Activity Book


Gemma Correll - 2016
    Welcome to the games, coloring projects, and crafts of your egalitarian dreams!The Feminist Activity Book has everything you need to usher in an era of colorful and intersectional joy. Featuring such activities as Feminist All-Star Trading Cards, Destroy the Page-Triarchy, Sexist Social Media Bingo, and A Feminist ABC, The Feminist Activity Book will fuel your feminist rage, remind you to laugh once in awhile, and bring you one step closer to an egalitarian utopia, or whatever.

Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence


Martin Bailey - 2016
    Based on original research, the book reveals discoveries that throw new light on the legendary artist and give a definitive account of his fifteen months spent in Arles, including his collaboration with Gauguin.Van Gogh headed to Arles believing that the landscape of Provence would have parallels with Japan, whose art he greatly admired. The south of France was an exciting new land, bursting with life. He loved walking the 5 kilometres up into the hills with the ruined abbey of Montmajour and in late spring he drew and painted over a dozen landscapes there. He went on an excursion to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a fishing village on the far side of the Camargue, where he saw the Mediterranean for the first time, energetically capturing it in paint. He painted portraits of friends and locals, and embarked on his flower still life paintings, culminating in the Sunflowers. During the heat of the Provencal summer, Van Gogh painted harvest scenes. He rented the Yellow House from May, and gradually did it up, calling it "an artist's house", inviting Paul Gauguin to join him there. This encounter was to have a profound impact on both of the artists. They painted side by side in the Alyscamps, an ancient necropolis on the outskirts of town, their collaboration coming to a dramatic end in December.The difficulties Van Gogh faced living by himself led to his eventual decision in May 1889 to retreat to the asylum at Saint-Remy. One of his final tasks at the Yellow House was to pack up two crates with his last eight months' of paintings. Unsold in his lifetime, the pictures have since been recognized as some of the greatest works of art ever created.

Reading Cy Twombly: Poetry in Paint


Mary Jacobus - 2016
    Enigmatic and sometimes hard to decipher, these inscriptions are a distinctive feature of his work. Reading Cy Twombly poses both literary and art historical questions. How does poetic reference in largely abstract works affect their interpretation?Reading Cy Twombly is the first book to focus specifically on the artist's use of poetry. Twombly's library formed an extension of his studio and he sometimes painted with a book open in front of him. Drawing on original research in an archive that includes his paint-stained and annotated books, Mary Jacobus's account--richly illustrated with more than 125 color and black-and-white images--unlocks an important aspect of Twombly's practice.Jacobus shows that poetry was an indispensable source of reference throughout Twombly's career; as he said, he never really separated painting and literature. Among much else, she explores the influence of Ezra Pound and Charles Olson; Twombly's fondness for Greek pastoral poetry and Virgil's Eclogues; the inspiration of the Iliad and Ovid's Metamorphoses; and Twombly's love of Keats and his collaboration with Octavio Paz.Twombly's art reveals both his distinctive relationship to poetry and his use of quotation to solve formal problems. A modern painter, he belongs in a critical tradition that goes back, by way of Roland Barthes, to Baudelaire. Reading Cy Twombly opens up fascinating new readings of some of the most important paintings and drawings of the twentieth century.