Consider Portrait Revolution by Julia L. Kay a gallery in book format with a collection of 450 works of art, a collaborative effort from 200 artists hailing from different countries when they embarked on a project which lasted seven years mainly exchanging techniques and doing portraits of each other.
The book showcases each piece with accompanying artist details, the medium that was used and its original dimensions. It has six chapters, each covering portraits by media, style, and theme. The other three chapters focus on featured artists where you’ll also find a narrative of each contributing artist, the whys and hows on portraits where you will find most of the reading detailing portrait techniques towards the back of the book and lastly, featured subjects.
Upon seeing this book online, I felt an old leaning desperately crying for a revival. I have been thinking about brushing up on painting lately which primarily motivated me to get this. The last “physical” (with tangible paint brushes and all) self-portrait I made was over fifteen years ago, using acrylic on canvas and it was abstract (bg on main pic). The most recent one I’ve done was via digital, applying several filters and various tweaks to simulate pastel paper with the very intent of later executing it using acrylic or oil on canvas.
I have done other digital projects which easily and cost-effectively turned into my kitchen’s wall art. This is definitely one of the pros, if not the main pro of digital art having to bypass mixing colors into a palette and not have to face the possibility of ever running out of paint (besides battling procrastination). I do somewhat miss the smell of turpentine.
The book is sewn for durability and presented in laminated paperback with thick glossy pages which render the colors beautifully compared to matte which often dulls an image. This book was an interesting read and helpful especially since I am looking towards rekindling an interest which has momentarily faded into the background in pursuit of other forms of creativity (needle crafts as of late). This in my opinion makes a perfect coffee table book and would recommend this to anyone who has a great appreciation for fine art and portraits.
[I received this book in exchange for an honest review from bloggingforbooks.com]
I remember in High School, Art Class, we had to do a self-portrait and I guess the teacher really liked mines that she put it in the hallway’s glass shelf.
Nice. You must have walked the halls with pride, lol. I don’t feel confident with painting facial details. For a time I painted my subjects without faces. Lol.