Art History
The Street Poster: Type, Shape and a Glance
How late nineteenth-century street posters joined type and image, and what their glance still asks of a layout.
Art History
Fauvism: Colour Chosen for Feeling
How the Fauves let colour leave local truth, and how to borrow that freedom without losing the picture.
Art History
Bauhaus Workshops and Ordinary Objects
How the Bauhaus taught making through workshops and everyday things, and what a home studio can still borrow.
Art History
Vanitas Still Life: Objects That Keep Time
How vanitas still life used ordinary objects to talk about time, and how to borrow the looking without the costume.
Art History
Gouache: Opaque Colour on a Working Desk
Why gouache stayed useful on illustrators' desks, and how its opaque, matte colour helps a study or a design.
Art History
Egg Tempera: Yolk, Thin Layers, a Firm Panel
How egg tempera binds pigment with yolk, why it suits thin layered strokes, and what oil painting later made easier.
Art History
What Ukiyo-e Taught Painters About the Crop
How Japanese woodblock prints used bold cropping and flat shape, and what that still teaches about framing a picture.
Art History
Pointillism: Dots, Optical Mix and Patience
How pointillist dots ask the eye to mix colour at a distance, and what that patience still offers a painter.
Materials and Tools
A Small Starter Kit You Will Actually Use
A modest starter kit for painting and drawing, built from a few tools you will use rather than a crowded box.
Materials and Tools
Storing Paints So They Last Between Sessions
How to cap, store and revive paints between sessions so tubes and pans do not dry out or grow a skin.
Materials and Tools
Charcoal, Graphite or Ink for a Drawing
How charcoal, graphite and ink differ in line, erasure and mess, and how to choose one for the drawing you mean to make.
Materials and Tools
Varnish: What It Does and When to Wait
What varnish does on a finished painting, why oil needs a long wait, and when glass is the kinder protection.