Sketching People: An Urban Sketcher's Manual to Drawing Figures and Faces
Lynne Chapman - 2016
But it can also be a challenge. How do you spot a likely subject? How do you choose the person most likely to stay still? How do you draw movement for the person that refuses to sit still? "Sketching People" offers straightforward, practical help to give beginning artists the confidence and ability to draw all sorts of people in many different settings. In the pages of this book, readers will find: How to capture the essence of characterDifferent line-work stylesTechniques for creating realistic skin tonesThe key to capturing the details of street lifeWays to create fabric foldsMastering tonal drawingsConveying age differences, and moreThis clearly written, fun to read book is bursting with inspirational artwork and candid advice that will help you improve your drawing skills and change the way you sketch for the better.
Figure Drawing: Design and Invention
Michael Hampton - 2009
This book emphasizes a simplified understanding of surface anatomy, in order to clarify the mechanics of the figure, facilitate invention, and ultimately create a skill-set that can be successfully applied to other media. In addition, this book focuses very strongly on practical usage, making sure the artist is able to assimilate the steps presented here into a cohesive working process. (Fourth printing, September 2011)
The Power of Art
Simon Schama - 2006
"The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things; visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality. . . ."With the same disarming force, The Power of Art propels us on an eye-opening, breathtaking odyssey, zooming in on eight extraordinary masterpieces, from Caravaggio's David and Goliath to Picasso's Guernica. Jolting us far from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists who, under extreme stress, created something unprecedented, altering the course of art forever.The embattled heroes—Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko—each in his own resolute way, faced crisis with steadfast defiance, pitting passion and conviction against scorn and short-sightedness. The masterpieces they created challenged convention, shattered complacency, shifted awareness and changed the way we look at the world.With vivid storytelling and powerfully evocative descriptive passages, Schama explores the dynamic personalities of the artists and the spirit of the times they lived through, capturing the flamboyant theatre of bourgeois life in Amsterdam, the passion and paranoia of Revolutionary Paris, and the carnage and pathos of Civil War Spain.Most compelling of all, The Power of Art traces the extraordinary evolution of eight "eye-popping" world-class works of art. Created in a bolt of illumination, such works "tell us something about how the world is, how it is to be inside our skins, that no more prosaic source of wisdom can deliver. And when they do that, they answer, irrefutably and majestically, the nagging question of every reluctant art-conscript . . . 'OK, OK, but what's art really for?'"
The Art of the Hunchback of Notre Dame
Stephen Rebello - 1996
The stunning art and evocative text of The Art of The Hunchback of Notre Dame take the reader on a fascinating journey through the making of the movie, the world of medieval France, the nineteenth-century Gothic literature that embraced that world, and the imaginations of the creative artists who have masterfully combined these challenging elements into a magnificent animated musical. The Art of The Hunchback of Notre Dame features the rarely seen spectrum of art created in the making of the film, as the story is imagined and re-imagined in a variety of media - from conceptual paintings, to story sketches and layout, drawings, through the many stages of animation and background painting, computer generated imagery, effects animation, and final art from the production. The range of artwork is both vital and luminous, capturing the beauty and splendor of this stunning realization of fifteenth-century Paris. The lively, informative text features background on the original Hugo novel, as well as the historical influences, inspirations, and ideas the creators of the film brought to the animation, story, and music.
Drawing People: How to Portray the Clothed Figure
Barbara Bradley - 2003
Next, you'll learn how to overcome the special challenges posed by clothing, including fabric folds and draping effects. Bradley illustrates how they're constructed and how to draw them in different situations--on male and female figures that are active or at rest.These reliable, proven drawing techniques will add a natural feel to your art, resulting in figures that look as if they could walk, run or dance right off the page.
Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Wassily Kandinsky - 1947
Written by the famous nonobjective painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), it explains Kandinsky's own theory of painting and crystallizes the ideas that were influencing many other modern artists of the period. Along with his own groundbreaking paintings, this book had a tremendous impact on the development of modern art.Kandinsky's ideas are presented in two parts. The first part, called "About General Aesthetic," issues a call for a spiritual revolution in painting that will let artists express their own inner lives in abstract, non-material terms. Just as musicians do not depend upon the material world for their music, so artists should not have to depend upon the material world for their art. In the second part, "About Painting," Kandinsky discusses the psychology of colors, the language of form and color, and the responsibilities of the artist. An Introduction by the translator, Michael T. H. Sadler, offers additional explanation of Kandinsky's art and theories, while a new Preface by Richard Stratton discusses Kandinsky's career as a whole and the impact of the book. Making the book even more valuable are nine woodcuts by Kandinsky himself that appear at the chapter headings.This English translation of Über das Geistige in der Kunst was a significant contribution to the understanding of nonobjectivism in art. It continues to be a stimulating and necessary reading experience for every artist, art student, and art patron concerned with the direction of 20th-century painting.
The Art of Wreck-It Ralph
Jennifer Lee - 2012
At the center of this hilarious and wildly original video-game-hopping adventure is Wreck-It Ralph, an arcade game bad guy who breaks all the rules when he sets off on a mission to prove he can be good. The Art of Wreck-It Ralph captures the fresh artistic vision of the film and the aesthetic journey of the filmmakers through interviews with the film's many artists, including a foreword by director Rich Moore and a preface by John Lasseter. Illustrated with character sketches, storyboards, visual development paintings, colorscripts, and more, this behind-the-scenes look at Disney's latest 3-D animated epic is a treat for video game and animation lovers alike.
Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Entire Branding Team
Alina Wheeler - 2003
From researching the competition to translating the vision of the CEO, to designing and implementing an integrated brand identity programme, the meticulous development process of designing a brand identity is presented through a highly visible step-by-step approach in five phases.
Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin
Lawrence Weschler - 1982
Traces the life and career of the California artist, who currently works with pure light and the subtle modulation of empty space.
Anatomy for the Artist
Sarah Simblet - 2001
This superb drawing guide helps you unravel its complexity and capture its aesthetic on paper. Packed with instructive illustrations and specially-commissioned photographs of male and female models, Anatomy for the Artist unveils the extraordinary construction of the human body and celebrates its continuing prominence in Western Art today. Through her detailed sketches, acclaimed artist Sarah Simblet shows you how to look inside the human frame to map its muscle groups, skeletal strength, balance, poise, and grace.Selected drawings superimposed over photographs reveal fascinating relationships between external appearance and internal structure. Six drawing classes guide you through human anatomy afresh, offering techniques for observing and drawing the skeleton, including the head, ribcage, pelvis, hands, and feet. By investigating a series of masterworks juxtaposed against photographs of real-life models, Dr. Simblet also traces the visions of different artists across time, from Holbein's Christ Entombed to Edward Hopper's Hotel Room.For any artist, learning about the human body is always a palpable delight. This imaginative reference guide will enhance your anatomical drawing and painting techniques at every level.
Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered
Austin Kleon - 2014
Now, in an even more forward-thinking and necessary book, he shows how to take that critical next step on a creative journey—getting known. Show Your Work! is about why generosity trumps genius. It’s about getting findable, about using the network instead of wasting time “networking.” It’s not self-promotion, it’s self-discovery—let others into your process, then let them steal from you. Filled with illustrations, quotes, stories, and examples, Show Your Work! offers ten transformative rules for being open, generous, brave, productive. In chapters such as You Don’t Have to Be a Genius; Share Something Small Every Day; and Stick Around, Kleon creates a user’s manual for embracing the communal nature of creativity— what he calls the “ecology of talent.” From broader life lessons about work (you can’t find your voice if you don’t use it) to the etiquette of sharing—and the dangers of oversharing—to the practicalities of Internet life (build a good domain name; give credit when credit is due), it’s an inspiring manifesto for succeeding as any kind of artist or entrepreneur in the digital age.
Ed Emberley's Drawing Book: Make a World
Ed Emberley - 1972
Emberley shows young artists how drawing simple shapes can lead to more complex renderings of objects in the world around them.
Gustav Klimt: 1862-1918
Gilles Néret - 1992
In his own time, Kilmt (1862-1918) was a highly successful painter, draftsman, muralist, and graphic artist; in the intervening years, iconic works such as The Kiss have been elevated to nothing less than cult status. Klimt's unfading popularity attests to the appeal of not only his aesthetic sensibilities but also that of the recurrent universal themes in his work: love, feminine beauty, aging, and death. He once wrote, "I am a painter who paints day after day from morning to night...Who ever wants to know something about me...ought to look carefully at my pictures." With this overview of Klimt's work, readers will delight in taking up that challenge.About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features:a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions
The Timeless Way of Building
Christopher W. Alexander - 1978
It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. It is not possible to make great buildings, or great towns, beautiful places, places where you feel yourself, places where you feel alive, except by following this way. And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.”The Timeless Way of Building is the introductory volume to Alexander’s other works, A Pattern Language and The Oregon Experiment, in the Center for Environmental Structure series.