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Portrait Revolution: Inspiration from Around the World For Creating Art in Multiple Mediums and Styles
Based on the popular international collaborative art project, Julia Kay's Portrait Party, this book features hundreds of portraits in multiple mediums and styles teamed with tips and insights on the artistic process.
The human face is one of the most important subjects for artists, no matter their chosen medium. Pulling from 50,000 works of portraiture created by the artists of the international online collaborative project Julia Kay’s Portrait Party, Portrait Revolution presents a new look at this topic—one that doesn’t limit itself to one medium, one style, one technique, or one artist. By presenting portraits in pencil, pen, charcoal, oils, watercolors, acrylics, pastels, mixed media, digital media, collage, and more, Julia Kay and co. demonstrate the limitless possibilities available to aspiring artists or even to professional artists who are looking to expand creatively.
Along with works in almost every conceivable medium, Portrait Revolution shines a spotlight on different portrait-making techniques and styles (featuring everything from realism to abstraction). With tips, insights, and recommendations from accomplished portrait artists from around the globe, this all-in-one inspiration resource provides everything you’ll need to kick-start your own portrait-making adventure.
The human face is one of the most important subjects for artists, no matter their chosen medium. Pulling from 50,000 works of portraiture created by the artists of the international online collaborative project Julia Kay’s Portrait Party, Portrait Revolution presents a new look at this topic—one that doesn’t limit itself to one medium, one style, one technique, or one artist. By presenting portraits in pencil, pen, charcoal, oils, watercolors, acrylics, pastels, mixed media, digital media, collage, and more, Julia Kay and co. demonstrate the limitless possibilities available to aspiring artists or even to professional artists who are looking to expand creatively.
Along with works in almost every conceivable medium, Portrait Revolution shines a spotlight on different portrait-making techniques and styles (featuring everything from realism to abstraction). With tips, insights, and recommendations from accomplished portrait artists from around the globe, this all-in-one inspiration resource provides everything you’ll need to kick-start your own portrait-making adventure.
- GenresArtNonfiction
224 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 11, 2017
31 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 26, 2017
This book is like having a museum in your hands.
August 1, 2017
This book was inspirational to my creative side. It showed me examples of people's work from all over the world, and, although I haven't done any portraits before, it sort of gave me the freedom to at least try.
Very cool pictures!
Very cool pictures!
January 28, 2019
Useful for some quick lessons in portraiture from ~200 artists in an online portrait party. Good for a fast analyses of various styles to help one figure out what style to pursue.
February 15, 2020
Practical
This is the book that led me to experiment in making portraits in ink. The idea of group portrait creation lets you see the world from a different perspective
This is the book that led me to experiment in making portraits in ink. The idea of group portrait creation lets you see the world from a different perspective
June 29, 2017
This book is about portraits, and it isn't a how to book on how to do a portrait. Despite it being a book with over 450 pictures of someone else, it is fascinating.
The premise of the book is explained in the first pages. The author had challenged herself to do a portrait of for three years. After the three years, it gets rather tiring to do a portrait in various methods of yourself. But what is, you challenged other people to do your portrait, and in turn you did theirs? What happens is this book.
For me the book is a creative outlet, encouragement that you can draw any method that you desire to develop a portrait. It doesn't have to be a realistic photo that you created out of oils. There are so many different techniques, different methods, that you just want to try a method out on your own and explore. At least that is what my inspiration from this book promoted.
In the very back of the book, after you've become motivated to draw, there is a section on how to do a portrait and how to see to draw. Working from photographs to tracing, to how to structure it on a page. Then at the very end, is how to go about hold a portrait party. Let's just say, that sounds cool, but I'm no where near that status yet!
I found this to be a fascinating book and well worth getting.
I received this book from the publisher, via Blogging for Books, in exchange for an honest review. The opinions are my own.
The premise of the book is explained in the first pages. The author had challenged herself to do a portrait of for three years. After the three years, it gets rather tiring to do a portrait in various methods of yourself. But what is, you challenged other people to do your portrait, and in turn you did theirs? What happens is this book.
For me the book is a creative outlet, encouragement that you can draw any method that you desire to develop a portrait. It doesn't have to be a realistic photo that you created out of oils. There are so many different techniques, different methods, that you just want to try a method out on your own and explore. At least that is what my inspiration from this book promoted.
In the very back of the book, after you've become motivated to draw, there is a section on how to do a portrait and how to see to draw. Working from photographs to tracing, to how to structure it on a page. Then at the very end, is how to go about hold a portrait party. Let's just say, that sounds cool, but I'm no where near that status yet!
I found this to be a fascinating book and well worth getting.
I received this book from the publisher, via Blogging for Books, in exchange for an honest review. The opinions are my own.
June 1, 2017
A keeper.
June 19, 2017
Inspiring!
February 27, 2018
I grabbed this from the library to look at the beautiful pictures, but I ended up reading every word. It’s amazingly inspiring, and I want to go make some art!
August 7, 2018
Not how-to book, but you will learn a lot about portraits, art, materials, paper and the thought process.
November 12, 2019
Not a how to book, but lots of different artistic styles and media to draw portraits. A book to dip in and out of, for inspiration.
April 18, 2017
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Blogging For Books/Watson-Guptill Publications. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]
Although I do not consider myself a particularly talented artist, from time to time I enjoy reading books about art [1]. This book almost makes me want to go to portrait party, or at least not immediately burn any such invitation I would receive. What is most appealing about this book is the context of the art that is included, namely 450 portraits from Julia Kay's virtual portrait party. A group of self-portrait artists signed up online to make portraits of others and were given freedom to draw in whatever medium or style that they wanted to. The results are impressive and immensely creative, showing a diverse set of inspirations and approaches that gives the reader at least some hope that modern art can create works of worth and lasting value that reveal some sort of truth about both the artist and the model. Indeed, some of the people in this book commented that they learned something about themselves by looking at what others saw in them, and that is a valuable insight to gain.
As might be expected from the subject matter of this book, a great deal of this book is unconventional. It is unconventional to have portrait parties where people draw each other, and certainly unconventional to combine a wide diversity of portraiture in book form. About the most conventional part of the book is that it comes out to just over 200 pages, which is a pretty standard length for most of the books that find their way to me. With that said, the book is divided into four chapters focusing on art: portraits by media (ranging from pencil to pen or ink or markers or water color or digital or needle arts and a lot more), portraits by style (including realism, abstract, drawing blind, monochrome, various types of limited color palattes, shapes and patterns, and dramatic light), portraits by theme (including babies, pets, musicians, artists at play and work, indoors and outdoors, and even some that reference art history), and some featured artists who were all obscure to me whose work is focused on. Throughout these chapters there are featured subjects which allows for a variety of styles to be seen describing the same person for an intriguing perspective. The fifth and final chapter, a short one, looks at the art of making portraits from the artists themselves, who have their own insights to share.
So, under what circumstances will you like this book? Do you like making portraits of yourself or others? Do you enjoy trying out different mediums or styles in your own art work or do you appreciate the way that the same model or subject can be drawn and painted in a variety of different ways? Do you have any sort of ideals of watching people create art that expresses their own muse as well as some sort of insight or clever observation about what the artist sees? If any or all of these questions can be answered in the affirmative, this is likely a book that will bring a great deal of pleasure and even perhaps the inspiration for future artistic material. To be sure, there are people who will find this book a lot more practical than I do, but even as a person with modest artistic talent, it was still enjoyable to see how different artists dealt with the task of creating a portrait of a fellow artist and how diverse the means of fulfilling that task were. And if I can enjoy this sort of book a great deal, those who are more talented and more interested in portraiture will find even more to enjoy.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
Although I do not consider myself a particularly talented artist, from time to time I enjoy reading books about art [1]. This book almost makes me want to go to portrait party, or at least not immediately burn any such invitation I would receive. What is most appealing about this book is the context of the art that is included, namely 450 portraits from Julia Kay's virtual portrait party. A group of self-portrait artists signed up online to make portraits of others and were given freedom to draw in whatever medium or style that they wanted to. The results are impressive and immensely creative, showing a diverse set of inspirations and approaches that gives the reader at least some hope that modern art can create works of worth and lasting value that reveal some sort of truth about both the artist and the model. Indeed, some of the people in this book commented that they learned something about themselves by looking at what others saw in them, and that is a valuable insight to gain.
As might be expected from the subject matter of this book, a great deal of this book is unconventional. It is unconventional to have portrait parties where people draw each other, and certainly unconventional to combine a wide diversity of portraiture in book form. About the most conventional part of the book is that it comes out to just over 200 pages, which is a pretty standard length for most of the books that find their way to me. With that said, the book is divided into four chapters focusing on art: portraits by media (ranging from pencil to pen or ink or markers or water color or digital or needle arts and a lot more), portraits by style (including realism, abstract, drawing blind, monochrome, various types of limited color palattes, shapes and patterns, and dramatic light), portraits by theme (including babies, pets, musicians, artists at play and work, indoors and outdoors, and even some that reference art history), and some featured artists who were all obscure to me whose work is focused on. Throughout these chapters there are featured subjects which allows for a variety of styles to be seen describing the same person for an intriguing perspective. The fifth and final chapter, a short one, looks at the art of making portraits from the artists themselves, who have their own insights to share.
So, under what circumstances will you like this book? Do you like making portraits of yourself or others? Do you enjoy trying out different mediums or styles in your own art work or do you appreciate the way that the same model or subject can be drawn and painted in a variety of different ways? Do you have any sort of ideals of watching people create art that expresses their own muse as well as some sort of insight or clever observation about what the artist sees? If any or all of these questions can be answered in the affirmative, this is likely a book that will bring a great deal of pleasure and even perhaps the inspiration for future artistic material. To be sure, there are people who will find this book a lot more practical than I do, but even as a person with modest artistic talent, it was still enjoyable to see how different artists dealt with the task of creating a portrait of a fellow artist and how diverse the means of fulfilling that task were. And if I can enjoy this sort of book a great deal, those who are more talented and more interested in portraiture will find even more to enjoy.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews