Painting from Life: Explorations in Watercolor [Paperback]

Douglas Lew (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2004

Painting from Life: Explorations in Watercolor chronicles the progression of artist Douglas Lew as he takes on the most eternal and challenging of themes: the nude. Working side-by-side with other artists in the context of life-drawing sessions, Lew struck out on his own heightened pace of exploration as he grappled with the ultimate problem: How to draw and paint a nude model accurately and expressively within the time limits of single pose, which were sometimes as short as five or ten minutes. Having started with single line drawings, Lew soon realized he could use watercolor to render volume more quickly. He then began to build paintings, sorting out composition, light, shapes, and color as he worked. Once he mastered the nude, Lew sought to be freed from it: In a delightful game of hide-and-seek he created seductive abstractions, leaving parts of the figure visible. At the heart of the book are Lew's remarkable figure drawings and paintings.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823036332
• ISBN-13: 978-0823036332
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,037,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book!, December 21, 2004

By 

Lynn Holbein "artist and activist" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Painting from Life: Explorations in Watercolor (Paperback)

For students or admirers of life drawing, this book is an inspiration! The style is loose, fresh and spontaneous. The beautiful art works on each page take us from drawings to watercolors, from portraits to abstraction. Lew explores a wide variety of approaches to color, light and shape.

The book is pure pleasure to look at, and offers advice and inspiration for those trying to capture on paper or canvass the challenging, exhilarating subject of the human form.

Like Charles Reid's figure paintings and Mel Stabin's The Figure in Watercolor, this book belongs on the bookshelf of artists who eschew photorealism and prefer the fast, fresh approach.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars figure painting with live models & limited time, May 12, 2005

By 

Margaret P. "mhp2027" (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Painting from Life: Explorations in Watercolor (Paperback)

This watercolor book is tightly focused on one aspect of art technique. The author presents his experiences over several years in an art consortium, which specializes in providing artists short poses of live models. The poses ranged from 1 minute to 45 minutes, with many around 20 minutes. This book presents the history of sketches Mr. Lew made at such sessions. Each sketch is accompanied by commentary on what the artist was trying to achieve. There are a few longer discussions on topics throughout, at the start of each chapter. The book progresses from use of dry medium (e.g., pencil) for sketching, into greyscale watercolor, to watercolor using all colors, into semi-abstractionism.

The comments and pictures have useful information, and show quite clearly the value of practicing from live models in short poses. Also, this book has a few valuable lessons; like, if you are getting borred, try something new, and the importance of backgrounds. After reading this book, I found myself trying some of these ideas on 15 to 60 minute poses with a live model. So, while my first impression was 3 stars, this earned "Painting from Life" a forth star. Advice on paiting that I can actually use is quite worthwhile!

It seems to me that the technique and approach displayed is entirely dissimilar from that of Charles Reid, though his books as well use sketches rather than finnished drawings for most illuminations.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lush colors, September 4, 2007

By 

Y.George "NC artist" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Painting from Life: Explorations in Watercolor (Paperback)

For the artist who loves painting the figure in a loose style, this book is tops. You can almost imagine the loose watercolors running off the page. The colors are lush. Nothing "tight" about this artist. This is a good contrast to the usually detailed painting style of many artists.