Art History

Drawing Aids, from the Grid to the Prism

How grids and optical aids have helped artists place a shape, and why the eye still has to finish the job.

8 November 2026

Why soft pastel suited close eighteenth-century portraits, and how its powdery colour behaves on paper today.

8 November 2026

How late nineteenth-century street posters joined type and image, and what their glance still asks of a layout.

8 November 2026

How the Fauves let colour leave local truth, and how to borrow that freedom without losing the picture.

8 November 2026

How the Bauhaus taught making through workshops and everyday things, and what a home studio can still borrow.

8 November 2026

How vanitas still life used ordinary objects to talk about time, and how to borrow the looking without the costume.

8 November 2026

Why gouache stayed useful on illustrators' desks, and how its opaque, matte colour helps a study or a design.

8 November 2026

How egg tempera binds pigment with yolk, why it suits thin layered strokes, and what oil painting later made easier.

8 November 2026

How Japanese woodblock prints used bold cropping and flat shape, and what that still teaches about framing a picture.

8 November 2026

How pointillist dots ask the eye to mix colour at a distance, and what that patience still offers a painter.

8 November 2026

How William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement challenged industrial production and left ideas about honest materials and good design.

7 November 2026

A look at how portable tube paint, new pigments and a changing art world made it possible for the Impressionists to paint outdoors.

7 November 2026