June 2023 MBR The Art Shelf

The Art Shelf

Palette Knife Painting
Lisa Elley
Walter Foster
c/o Quarto Publishing Group USA
www.quartoknows.com
9780760382165, $22.99, PB, 128pp

https://www.amazon.com/Palette-Knife-Painting-beautiful-masterpieces/dp/0760382166

Synopsis: Professional artist Lisa Elley works from her studio in the San Francisco Bay Area with the purpose of inspiring and bringing joy to people through her art. With the publication of "Palette Knife Painting: Deep Impasto: Paint beautiful masterpieces using a palette knife and the impasto technique", Lisa shares her techniques with aspiring artists through easy-to-follow step-by-step projects.

Using her palette knife technique, readers can learn to paint: Art inspired by Vincent van Gogh; Seascapes and landscapes; A Tuscan vineyard; Flower fields; Wet-into-wet (alla prima); With texture -- and so much more!

Also included in "Palette Knife Painting" are: Primers on the best palette knives and paints to use; Color mixing and color theory instructions; Beautiful, textured artwork that seems to lift off the page .

Critique: "Palette Knife Painting: Deep Impasto" is an ideal, comprehensive, and thoroughly 'user friendly' DIY course of instruction for artists of all skill levels looking to learn to paint and scrape with oil paint. Also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.99), " Palette Knife Painting: Deep Impasto" is highly recommended for personal, professional, community, and art school instructional reference collections.

Editorial Note #1: Lisa Elley (www.lisaelley.com.) is an award-winning palette knife artist who works from her studio in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lisa's pieces are lively, uplifting, colorful, and highly textured. Her paintings hang on the walls of private and corporate collectors across the United States, as well as around the world. In addition to selling her art through her website and other online platforms, Lisa hosts live painting events, teaches workshops, designs wine labels, and more.

Editorial Note #2: It should be also be pointed out that other titles in the Paint with Me series from Walter Foster (https://walterfoster.com) highlights well-known artists and their work in visually appealing and instructive books.

Draw Chibi Style
Piuvvy
Quarry Books
c/o Quarto Publishing Group USA
www.quartous.com
9780760381410, $19.99, PB, 128pp

https://www.amazon.com/Draw-Chibi-Style-Step-Step/dp/0760381410

Synopsis: With the publication of "Draw Chibi Style: A Beginner's Step-by-Step Guide for Drawing Adorable Minis - 62 Lessons: Basics, Characters, Special Effects", chibi artist Piuuvy is the ideal DIY guide to:

Chibi Essentials. The first 18 lessons teach solid drawing fundamentals that demonstrate how to draw chibi characters from the ground up and will help you build the skills you need to create your very own supercute characters.

Chibi Characters, Step by Step. Through step-by-step drawings, from rough sketch to finish, discover the drawing process for 44 adorable characters in a range of genres and themes, including a witch, a butterfly fairy, a shark, a shadow knight, and an action hero, each presented in a different pose.

Critique: Whether you're just beginning to draw, trying your hand at chibi for the first time, or looking for ideas and guidance for bringing your own chibi characters to life, "Draw Chibi Style: A Beginner's Step-by-Step Guide for Drawing Adorable Minis - 62 Lessons: Basics, Characters, Special Effects" is an ideal DIY instructional guide, 'how-to' manual, and visual reference for aspiring artists and illustrator wanting to familiarize themselves with this distinctive Manga Comics style of drawing. This large format paperback style (7.99 x 10 x 1.85 inches, 1.2 pounds) is especially recommended for personal, professional, community, and art school library collections. It should be noted that "Draw Chibi Style" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).

Editorial Note: Chibi artist Thao Vy (aka Piuuvy) creates K-pop fanart, anime and manga characters, and private commissioned portraits and icons. Based in Vietnam, see more of her work at https://www.linkedin.com/in/thaovynguyen418, and follow her on Instagram and Twitter @piuuvy

Abstract Expressionists: The Women
Ellen G. Landau and Joan M. Marter
Merrell Publishers
www.merrellpublishers.com
9781858947037, $65.00

https://www.amazon.com/Abstract-Expressionists-Ellen-G-Landau/dp/1858947030

Abstract Expressionists: The Women covers a key art movement of New York and San Francisco in the mid-twentieth century (now described as being the first major art movement in America to gain international status). Because key artists chosen for profile in this movement have typically been men, Ellen G. Landau and Joan M. Marter's survey is particularly notable in focusing its coverage on the many women who were also part of the exhibits and movement that fostered this art form. The heart of this exposure is the holdings in the Levett Collection, a private gathering of art by female Abstract Expressionists. Art history essays by Landau and Marter accompany the color illustrations packed into this celebration, which include paintings, collages, and sculptures and accompany over thirty artist biographies. Any definitive library of American art and women's contributions should make Abstract Expressionists: The Women a mainstay.

Making Art in Prison: Survival and Resistance
Janie Paul
Hat & Beard Press
https://www.facebook.com/hatandbeardpress
9781955125277, $40.00, HC, 336pp

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Art-Prison-Survival-Resistance/dp/1955125279

Synopsis: The United States is the most incarcerating nation in the world. More than two million people are locked behind bars, where they endure the degradation and violence of a dehumanizing system. But in prisons and penitentiaries around the country, incarcerated people have regained their dignity by creating objects of beauty, meaning, and value. These powerful stories and images upend the manufactured stereotypes of those living in prison, imparting a real human dimension -- a critical step in the movement to reform incarceration.

For 27 years, Professor Janie Paul has traveled throughout Michigan to meet artists and select work for the project she co-founded: The Annual Exhibitions of Artists in Michigan Prisons, an initiative of the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan. Pedagogical as well as curatorial, the project has provided crucial validation for the artists. The result is the publication of "Making Art in Prison: Survival and Resistance" which features more than 200 images of the prisoner's extraordinary work.

Delving deeply into the ways in which incarcerated artists create meaning through their artistic practice, Professor Paul explains how the making, sharing, and formation of artistic friendships within prisons can constitute acts of resistance against the violence and banality of prison life. Most of the artists did not make art before coming to prison. Their accomplishments show that art making need not be a privilege of the few, but is rather a basic human need, and in these circumstances, a necessary means of survival.

"Making Art in Prison: Survival and Resistance" reveals (through the eyes of the artists who have lived through it) what mass incarceration looks and feels like in the United States. It reveals the ways in which they keep their humanity intact; it invites us to reflect on our own humanity and the problem of living in a country that incarcerates more of its population than any other nation in the world. This unique volume also invites us to look closely at the images and appreciate the richness of life and luminosity emerging from the darkest corner of our country.

Critique: Singular, seminal, original, fascinating, informative, memorable, "Making Art in Prison: Survival and Resistance" is an impressive large format style hardcover volume (11.34 x 1.26 x 8.66 inches, 4.2 pounds) is especially recommended for personal, professional, community, governmental, and academic library Contemporary Art History, Criminology, and Penology collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note: Janie Paul (https://stamps.umich.edu/people/janie-paul) is a painter, curator, and writer. She is the senior curator and co-founder, with her husband Buzz Alexander, of the Exhibitions of Artists in Michigan Prisons (founded in 1996), a project of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), which Buzz founded in 1990 at the University of Michigan. She is an Arthur F. Thurnau professor emerita of the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

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