• A2 well primed canvas (stretched canvas or canvas board)
• Rags and brushes
• Paints
• L shapes

Just wet the brush and work up a lather on the hard cake. Even old, hardened oil paint brushes can be restored to their original snap and luster.

Degas (Hardcover)
By Werner Hofmann
Thames & Hudson (November 30, 2007)

An intriguing, marvelously illustrated, landmark survey of this popular painter’s work.

We tend to think of Degas as an Impressionist who painted lovely ballerinas and lively scenes at the racetrack. As Werner Hofmann so ably demonstrates in his magisterial new study, that viewpoint fails to do justice to the issues that Degas addressed in his art and to how innovative he truly was. Focusing on people in their social environment, on their relationships and their frequent isolation, Degas embraced many kinds of personal alienation in his work.

His early paintings depict members of the bourgeoisie mainly in the role of observers (as in The Bellelli Family of 1859). Degas shows them indulging in leisure pursuits, as art collectors and museum visitors, or as members of the public at the theater and the races, but they are self-involved and shrouded in silence.

This aura of self-possessed calm contrasts with that of the people who inhabit the world of entertainment. Degas depicted all the stages of public performance: behind the scenes, the performances themselves, and the post-performance collapse of illusion. Hofmann investigates this in various contexts: the self-absorbed body (women at their toilette); the trained body (ballet rehearsals and dancers on stage); musicians; and the marketed body (women in brothels). 215 illustrations, 135 color.

Gardner’s Art Through the Ages
Hardcover: 1248 pages
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Co Inc; International Ed edition

The market-leading text for the art history survey course, GARDNER’S ART THROUGH THE AGES has served as a comprehensive and thoughtfully crafted guide to the defining phases of the world’s artistic tradition. With this book in hand, thousands of students have watched the story of art unfold in its full historical, social, religious, economic, and cultural context, and thus deepened their understanding of art, architecture, painting, and sculpture. By virtue of its comprehensive coverage, strong emphasis on context, and rich, accurate art reproductions, GARDNER’S ART THROUGH THE AGES has earned and sustained a reputation of excellence and authority.

The Painter’s Handbook, Revised and Expanded
Mark David Gottsegen
ISBN: 0-8230-3496-8
Watson-Guptill

Much more than just another guide to artists’ materials, The Painter’s Handbook is an amazingly useful resource, with information on everything from the canvas up: the canvas itself, plus paper, sizes and grounds, pigments and binders, solvents and thinners, varnishes and preservatives. Dozens of step-by-step recipes for make-it-yourself paints, pastels, varnishes, gessoes, sizes, supports, and equipment take this indispensable guide way beyond the competition. Authoritatively written by Mark David Gottsegen, chair of the federal government’s ASTM committee on artist’s materials, the revised Painter’s Handbook considers the enormous changes in the art-materials world since the first edition was published in 1993. New materials, new health issues, new information on outmoded and even harmful supplies and practices mean that every painter needs a copy of The Painter’s Handbook.