Book Chat: Portrait Revolution

Monday morning is the perfect time for some book chat, right?

Next up… Portrait Revolution: Inspiration from Around the World for Creating Art in Multiple Mediums and Styles, by Julia L. Kay

“From doodles to digital, from oils to inks, variety abounds at Julia Kay’s Portrait Party.”

Start date: 3/30/2017

Finish date: 4/3/2017

Genre: Non-Fiction
Format: Paperback

Source: Blogging for Books

Grade: A

I love the origin story of the portrait party that inspired this book: in 2010 Julia Kay finished a 3-year-long project to make a self-portrait every day; ready to turn her gaze away from herself, she started a group online to bring artists together for a portrait party, an event where artists can share photos of themselves for other artists to create portraits for each other. Instead of a one-time event, over six years the group grew to more than 1,000 artists from more than 55 different countries, producing more than 50,000 portraits.

This book showcases the huge variety of portraits produced from this international collaborative project. The unifying theme is portraits, but the range of media is wide, including digital and traditional, and some that fall in neither category. Portraits are organized in a few different ways: by media from colored pencils to ballpoint pen to collage; by style from drawing blind to monochrome, by themes from babies to portraits within portraits, and featured artists. Over 450 artists total are represented, and both their artwork and their words are featured, with quick tips to explain their process, how to use media, etc. with tons of examples. My favorite pages showed how different artists interpreted the same photo.

This is a fun addition to my personal library, and it makes me want to break out my sketchbook. I could see this being a great resource for a budding artist or in the classroom.

Portrait Revolution releases tomorrow! Find out more about the author and book on the publisher’s website, or check it out on Amazon here!

***I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.***

The Amateur Librarian is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

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