Studio Seeing: A Practical Guide to Drawing, Painting, and Perception

by Michael Torlen

A study of perception and its role in drawing and painting, featuring practical exercises.  

Studio Seeing offers a close examination of perception as it is used by an artist in the studio. Michael Torlen shares here the successful process he has developed over decades of teaching and studio practice in a straightforward way that other artists can apply to their own work. Using examples from his own experience and supporting them with a rich illustration program that includes works from historical and contemporary artists, Torlen distills clear, effective principles for painting and drawing that will help artists make great strides in their understanding and ability. Each chapter is rounded out with exercises designed to help artists immediately understand and apply its concepts.
 

264 pages, Paperback

Published September 8, 2023

Reviews

[Katherine Gregor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so rich in expert insights into making your art that it's like an excellent university art program between two covers. It's packed with mind-bending insights, a 40-year art professor's patient guidance, color images of the artworks discussed as examples, and cultural and art historical context. It's got easy-to-try practical exercises at the end of each chapter, so you can immediately start applying the concepts covered. (Now making my way through doing these for the second time). If you read it from cover to cover and USE this book, kudos -- you will be so grateful, and your art-making will advance by leaps and bounds. It's been a like a whole new world for me. I'd love to be in conversation with anyone else reading and applying it to their practice. (Extra kudos that it's co-dedicated to my dad, artist Harold Gregor, who taught the author when he was starting out.)

[Debra Yoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Torlen has brought together art practice, aesthetics, art history, sociology, psychology, and probably a few other ologies, into a very readable and useful book. For artists and serious students of art, this book provides clear explanations to problems that they might have solved (or not solved) through intuition, or by just making a lot of attempts. For instructors, it offers concrete language for explaining what and how we see and what is going on in a painting or drawing, and also provides suggested classroom exercises. It’s very practical, with plenty of illustrations, stories, and examples.

There is a lot of wisdom and experience packed into these pages. The first chapter on “Fear” is a gift to anyone starting out to make art.