For the full list, visit http://www.parkablogs.com/content/upcoming-art-books
All descriptions below are from Amazon.
More Than a Likeness: The Enduring Art of Mary Whyte is the first comprehensive book on the life and work of one of today's most renowned watercolorists. From Whyte's earliest paintings in rural Ohio and Pennsylvania, to the riveting portraits of her southern neighbors, historian Martha R. Severens provides us with an intimate look into the artist's private world.
With more than two hundred full-color images of Whyte's paintings and sketches, as well as comparison works by masters such as Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth, and John Singer Sargent, Severens clearly illustrates how Whyte's art has been shaped and how the artist forged her own place in the world today.
Though Whyte's academic training in Philadelphia was in oil painting, she learned the art of watercolor on her own--by studying masterworks in museums. Today Whyte's style of watercolor painting is a unique blend of classical realism and contemporary vision, as seen in her intimate portraits of Southern blue-collar workers and elderly African American women in the South Carolina lowcountry.
"For me ideas are more plentiful than the hours to paint them, and I worry that I cannot get to all of my thoughts before they are forgotten or are pushed aside by more pressing concerns," explains Whyte. "Some works take time to evolve. Like small seeds the paintings might not come to fruition until several years later, after there has been ample time for germination."
Using broad sweeping washes as well as miniscule brushstrokes, Whyte directs the viewer's attention to the areas in her paintings she deems most important. Murky passages of neutral colors often give way to areas of intense detail and color, giving the works a variety of edges and poetic focus. Several paintings included in the book are accompanied by enlarged areas of detail, showcasing Whyte's technical mastery.
More Than a Likeness is replete with engaging artwork and inspiring text that mark the mid-point in Whyte's artistry. Of what she will paint in the future, the artist says, "I have always believed that as artists we don't choose our vocation, style, or subject matter. Art chooses us."
More Than a Likeness: The Enduring Art of Mary Whyte is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Jim Mahfood, aka Food One's sixteen-year-long professional career has spanned across the fields of comic books, illustration, animation, advertising art, murals, gallery shows, body painting, and live art in bars and nightclubs. This is Mahfood's first 256-page, classy hardcover art book, featuring the absolute best of his diverse work, from finished art, sketches, behind-the-scenes concepts, never-before-seen drawings and designs, photographs of painted girls, and more. Mahfood's style, the neo-psychedelic Visual Funk, is a combination of various influences that Jim has managed to turn into a recognizable brand, garnering a loyal following across the globe.
Visual Funk: Jim Mahfood Art is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Lucian Freud (1922-2011), widely regarded as the greatest figurative painter of our time, spent seven months painting a portrait of the art critic Martin Gayford. The daily narrative of their encounters takes the reader into that most private place, the artist’s studio, and to the heart of the working methods of this modern master—both technical and subtly psychological. From this emerges an understanding of what a portrait is, but something else is also created: a portrait, in words, of Freud himself. This is not a biography, but a series of close-ups: the artist at work and in conversation at restaurants, in taxis, and in his studio. It takes one into the company of the painter for whom Picasso, Giacometti, and Francis Bacon were friends and contemporaries, as were writers such as George Orwell and W. H. Auden.
The book is illustrated with many of Lucian Freud’s other works, telling photographs taken by David Dawson of Freud in his studio, and images by such great artists of the past as van Gogh and Titian who are discussed by Freud and Gayford.
Full of wry observations, the book reveals the inside story of how it feels to pose for a remarkable artist and become a work of art.
63 illustrations, 57 in color
Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Filled with dozens of new tiles and four never-before seen tangles designed especially for this book, you'll be using Zentangle in ways you never dreamed. Create shapes, letterforms, borders, even Zendalas as you master each new tangle, all while reducing stress through the intentional act of creating repetitive patterns. Perfect for artists of all levels, this workbook will immerse you in a daily meditation of Zentangle.
The Zentangle Untangled Workbook: A Tangle-a-Day to Draw Your Stress Away is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Go ahead, have fun with your photography. Creative Photography Lab is a collection of fun and silly photography exercises designed to teach you something about your camera (and yourself!). Whether you’re rockin’ a digital SLR, a point and shoot, or even a phone camera, this book will:
- Provide easy exercises to help you discover your own personal style.
- Tackle the technical stuff.
- Explore a new way of seeing.
- Turn your camera into a powerful tool of self-expression.
- Help you capture amazing shots for your blog, social media, photo albums, your wall at home, or just for yourself.
You don’t have to be a professional photographer or own expensive cameras and equipment to get inspiring shots. If you’ve ever taken a picture, this book is for you. Warning: once you get started, you’ll never want to stop.
Creative Photography Lab: 52 Fun Exercises for Developing Self-Expression with your Camera. Includes 6 Mixed-Media Projects (Lab Series) is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Finally, the hottest artwork in comics today is now found in this limited edition art book. Collecting the most sought after covers created by the industry's biggest stars, the art featured in this collection comes from Zenescope Entertainment's library of incredible limited edition, convention exclusives. This hardcover collection comes in a slipcase complete with a limited edition art print. This one of a kind art book is limited to 2500 copies worldwide with 1750 copies available for a limited time - exclusively through Amazon.com.
The Art of Zenescope Limited Edition V1 is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Artists around the world have lately been turning to their bookshelves for more than just a good read, opting to cut, paint, carve, stitch or otherwise transform the printed page into whole new beautiful, thought-provoking works of art.
Art Made from Books is the definitive guide to this compelling art form, showcasing groundbreaking work by today's most showstopping practitioners. From Su Blackwell's whimsical pop-up landscapes to the stacked-book sculptures of Kylie Stillman, each portfolio celebrates the incredible creative diversity of the medium. A preface by pioneering artist Brian Dettmer and an introduction by design critic Alyson Kuhn round out the collection. Presented in an unusual, tactile package with an exposed spine, this is an essential addition to the libraries of book lovers and art aficionados.
Art Made from Books: Altered, Sculpted, Carved, Transformed is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Stay in touch. The ongoing catalog of contemporary art, now in its fourth volume
Think of this tome as a global go-round of the world’s most influential galleries: if it’s hot in the art world today, it’s in this book. Emerging artists are featured alongside established greats like Chuck Close, David Hockney, or Brice Marden. A to Z entries on more than 100 artists include images of important recent work, an introductory text, and a short exhibition history with bibliographical information. The illustrated appendix collects contact details for the galleries representing the artists as well as auction results of the last few years.
Bonus: a special feature focusing on the art boom in Eastern Asia, with essays by Karen Smith on the contemporary art scenes in Beijing and Shanghai, and by Colin Chinnery on the postwar art-historical developments between China, Japan, and Korea. Conversations with leading curators from Seoul and Tokyo throw a light on the current developments in these cities, while a small art guide of the region’s metropolises in the appendix can serve as a guide to the must-see venues for travellers or browsers through the World Wide Web.
Art Now! Vol:4 is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
In the 1840s and 1850s, "Brady of Broadway" was one of the most successful and acclaimed Manhattan portrait galleries. Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Dolley Madison, Henry James as a boy with his father, Horace Greeley, Edgar Allan Poe, the Prince of Wales, and Jenny Lind were among the dignitaries photographed in Mathew Brady's studio. But it was during the Civil War that he became the founding father of what is now called photojournalism and his photography became an enduring part of American history.
The Civil War was the first war in history to leave a detailed photographic record, and Mathew Brady was the war's chief visual historian. Previously, the general public had never seen in such detail the bloody particulars of war--the strewn bodies of the dead, the bloated carcasses of horses, the splintered remains of trees and fortifications, the chaos and suffering on the battlefield. Brady knew better than anyone of his era the dual power of the camera to record and to excite, to stop a moment in time and to draw the viewer vividly into that moment.
He was not, in the strictest sense, a Civil War photographer. As the director of a photographic service, he assigned Alexander Gardner, James F. Gibson, and others to take photographs, often under his personal supervision; he also distributed Civil War photographs taken by others not employed by him. Ironically, Brady had accompanied the Union army to the first major battle at Bull Run, but was so shaken by the experience that throughout the rest of the war he rarely visited battlefields, except well before or after a major battle. The famous Brady photographs at Antietam were shot by Gardner and Gibson.
Few books about Brady have gone beyond being collections of the photographs attributed to him, accompanied by a biographical sketch. MATHEW BRADY will be the biography of an American legend--a businessman, an accomplished and innovative technician, a suave promoter, a celebrated portrait artist, and, perhaps most important, a historian who chronicled America during its finest and gravest moments of the 19th century.
Mathew Brady: Portraits of a Nation is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Steve McCurry's iconic images have made him one of the world's most popular photographers working today. Now, for the first time, he shares the stories behind stunning images taken from around the world throughout his extensive career.
In the finest documentary tradition, Untold: The Stories Behind the Photographs delves into McCurry's personal archive to reveal never-before-seen ephemera, including journals, portraits, maps, and beautifully reproduced snapshots from various assignments. The book is organized into 14 photo stories, each brought to life by narrative text and over 100 lavish, full-color photo plates. Together, these fascinating documents create a living biography of one of photography's greatest legends.
Untold: The Stories Behind the Photographs is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) is often considered to be a genius in a class of his own, an exceptional self-taught artist who paid little attention to the art world around him. In reality, Van Gogh learned extensively from others, exchanged ideas with his contemporaries, and often made use of prevailing methods and techniques to hone his skills.
This extraordinary book explores the workmanship behind his artistry. The reader follows Van Gogh’s quest to perfect his skills and the way he adopted various drawing and painting techniques; acquired information about materials; learned about the physical characteristics of canvasses, paint, paper, chalk, and other materials; how he approached working on paper and canvas and which factors influenced his working practice. Showing his work alongside that of other artists demonstrates the degree to which he followed examples set by his contemporaries. Van Gogh’s working methods are explored along with his most famous works, addressing topics as the use of a perspective frame, color theory, the influence of contemporaries and the famous repetitions of a theme as in the Sunflowers and the Bedroom series.
Van Gogh at Work (Mercatorfonds) is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
A treasure of a gift for the well-read woman, this collection brings together 50 stirring portraits, in watercolor and in word, of literature's most well-read female characters. Anna Karenina, Clarissa Dalloway, Daisy Buchanan...each seems to live on the page through celebrated artist Samantha Hahn's evocative portraits and hand-lettered quotations, with the pairing of art and text capturing all the spirit of the character as she was originally written. The book itself evokes vintage grace reimagined for contemporary taste, with a cloth spine silkscreened in a graphic pattern, debossed cover, and pages that turn with the tactile satisfaction of watercolor paper. In the hand and in the reading, here is a new classic for the book lover's library.
Well-Read Women: Portraits of Fiction's Most Beloved Heroines is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Learn how to make each brushstroke count when painting classically beautiful landscapes using a combination of traditional and modern watercolor techniques.
Master artist and teacher Lian Quan Zhen shows how to blend Eastern and Western art theories, materials and techniques to create landscapes with graceful simplicity.
Chinese Landscape Painting Techniques for Watercolor includes 27 start-to-finish demonstrations, which show how to capture the spirit and mood of the landscape in all types of weather and in all four seasons. It also features a wide variety of landscape subjects from America and around the world.
Chinese Landscape Painting Techniques for Watercolor is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Using a simple doodle as a starting point, 18 artists take you on an inspirational, crafty journey! Filled with inventive prompts designed to fuel the imagination, these 75 exercises motivate crafters to pick up a pencil, brush, or marker, and explore their artistic voice. From quick “try it” ideas using shapes and patterns to doodled portraits and contour drawings, these step-by-step projects are wild creative fun. The featured artists include Cori Dantini, who provides a “Recipe for a Face”; Flora Chang with innovative watercolor designs; and Teesha Moore who offers ideas for adding personality to doodled characters.
Craft-a-Doodle: 75 Creative Exercises from 18 Artists is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
This convenient kit offers you everything you need to get started in the playful and inspiring world of Zentangle®. Zentangles® are a popular new trend in the drawing and paper arts world. The concept was started by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas as a way to practice focus and meditation through drawing, by using repetitive lines, marks, circles, and shapes. Each mark is called a "tangle" and you combine various tangles into patterns to create "tiles" or small square drawings.
Tangle Art A Meditative Drawing Kit includes: a full-color, 40-page instructional booklet containing beautiful art samples and techniques ((with 8 blank sketchbook pages to practice your drawing), drawing pens in two sizes, and a pencil and eraser.
Tangle Art: A Meditative Drawing Kit: Includes archival pens, paper tiles, and a beautiful instruction book to get you started! is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Whether for work on a finished piece, trying a new technique, or getting in some practice time, artists can work when and where they want using the Art Models series. Chosen specifically for artists who sell their work, Art Models 8 features 174 all-new figure studies by 55 different models, both male and female, that represent a wide range of physiques and diversity. The poses include individuals and couples in natural, relaxed postures—from standing and sitting to lying down. A judicious amount of photo retouching has been done, not to make the models more glamorous, but to remove distractions. The PC- and Mac-compatible
DVD-ROM included in the book features high-resolution photos in JPG format. This popular image format allows the photos to be viewed and manipulated in any way an artist might find useful, such as combining images or rotating them. Images can be viewed on a computer screen, printed out, projected for a group, or via a high-definition television. Each angle of every pose may also be enlarged, enabling artists to zoom in on specific body parts to achieve a higher level of detail.
Art Models 8: Practical Poses for the Working Artist is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
A practical tutorial guide on the technical aspects of drawing and painting portraits, beautifully illustrated with over 400 step-by-step photographs.
How to Draw and Paint Portraits: Learn how to draw people through taught example, with more than 400 superb photographs and practical exercises, each designed to help you develop your skills is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Thanks to pioneering masters such as Dr. Robert J. Lang, origami has transcended its humble roots as a traditional Japanese papercraft to take a place among the global fine arts. In Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami, Dr. Lang and Asian art curator Meher McArthur chronicle origami's remarkable evolution and showcases the widespread applications of paper folding solutions in the fields of contemporary mathematics, engineering, design, and the international peace movement.
Based around a groundbreaking museum show by the same name, Folding Paper features the work of more than forty leading origami artists from around the world, including Brian Chan, Erik Joisel, Erik and Martin Demaine, Tomoko Fuse, Daniel Kwan, Michael LaFosse, Jeannine Moseley, and Akira Yoshizawa. Combining Dr. Lang's and McArthur's illuminating narrative history with lavish color photographs of more than sixty breathtaking works—from Joel Cooper's haunting Cyrus mask to Linda Tomoko Mihara's delicate Crane Cube to Eric Joisel's lifelike Pangolin model—Folding Paper is an enthralling introduction to the contemporary art of paper folding.
Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
EXPOSE 11: The Finest Digital Art in the Known Universe
This star-studded tribute to the kings and queens of comedy draws together such legendary names as Steve Martin, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Ricky Gervais, and many more. Granted extraordinary access, photographer Matt Hoyle has captured his subjects in portraits that are works of art in themselves—by turns zany and deadpan, laugh-out-loud and contemplative. Accompanying them are first-person reflections from each of the comedians on life and laughter that always cut straight to the heart of comedy: it's funny because it's true. Page after sidesplitting page in Comic Genius offers prose as engaging as each portrait is memorable. Here, in one handsome package, is the gift of laughter itself.
Comic Genius: Portraits of Funny People is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
This full-scale survey of Corita Kent's work includes prints and ephemera from all phases of her life, revealing her importance as an activist printmaker and a sylistic innovator in graphic design.
Artist, activist, teacher, and devout Catholic Corita Kent (1918-1986) eloquently combined her passions for faith and politics during her rich and varied career. As a teacher at LA's Immaculate Heart College, she fostered a creative and collaborative arts community and developed an interest in printmaking. Her posters, murals, and signature serigraphs combined messages of love and faith with images from popular culture and inventive use of type and color.
For Kent, printmaking was a populist medium to communicate with the world around her. This activist spirit came most alive in the 1960s, when her posters and murals addressed subjects like racism and poverty, U.S. military brutalities in Vietnam, and conflicts between radical and conservative positions in the Catholic Church. Even after the war, and after she had left the church, she continued to be active in Boston's urban issues, producing prints and commissioned works until her death in 1986.
Full of the lively, colorful work that was so iconically hers, this volume presents four decades of a life dedicated to serving others through and with the language of art.
Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
Spontaneous, irreverent, personal. Collage fits more perfectly into our current age than almost any other artistic technique. The technique of collage fits perfectly into our current age. Raw visual material is collected by an artist and then combined in such a way as to abstract the individual elements enough that the artist's own vision becomes prominent. Because collage's references range from other artistic works and techniques to scientific images, pop culture, and erotica, these raw materials reflect humanity's collective visual memory and context.
It's collage's broad scope--and irreverence--that make this technique so interesting for both artist and audience. So it comes as no surprise that a lively scene has developed around contemporary collage in the last few years.
Our book cutting edges was the first to document work by this scene, which has continued to expand the possibilities of the genre. Beyond the lowbrow movement, which brings a fresh perspective to figurative surrealism, more and more established artists are now embracing this medium. Their work bridges the historical gap between the classic pioneers of the technique from the 1920s and today's vanguard of contemporary collage. Showcasing outstanding current artwork and artists, The Age of collage is a striking documentation of this new appetite for destructive construction.
The book also takes an insightful behind-the-scenes look at those working with this interdisciplinary and cross-media approach. While illustration, painting, and photography continue to fundamentally influence collage, the featured work also plays with elements of abstraction, constructivism, surrealism, and dada. Collage gives artists more room to stake out diverse artistic positions than almost any other existing technique. Through confident cuts, brushstrokes, mouse clicks, or pasting, collage gives the impossible a tangible form--while turning our worldview on its head along the way.
In their visual confrontation with reality in our digital age, which has already made geographic, temporal, and artistic boundaries obsolete, these artists celebrate and exaggerate simultaneousness.
The Age of Collage: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository (US | UK)
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