Develop skills

30 Compose a still life

Lancelot Richardson introduces a variety of compositional tools
for arranging a still life, and suggests ideas for selecting objects

40 Techniques for still-life textures

Lancelot Richardson demonstrates how to draw a variety
of common still-life textures in different media

48 Bitesize
Whether you have half an hour or an afternoon to spare, follow these
quick, simple and fun tips and start experimenting with your art today

P rojec ts

58 The delicious art of

coloured pencils
Follow Steven Hughes as he shares his process for creating
a variety of surface textures in coloured pencil
118
Create a
64 Find beauty in a fading flower vanitas
Julia Trickey creates translucent watercolour featuring minute detail

70 Fun tops for painting ammonites

Stephanie Law shares how to replicate the beautiful 106Paint a high-key,
textures and tones of ammonites in watercolour
contemporary still life
Rebecca de Mendonça explains how to get drama into your
76 Drawing with pastels pastel work, and how to work lights over darks

and Conté crayons

Capture the essence of natural forms with Rebecca de 114 Use a rich colour palette
Mendonça, combining pastels with Conté crayons Influenced by the 17th-century Dutch Masters, Georgia Cox
shows how to create a flower composition in a rich palette

82 The Golden Age of flowers

Nel Whatmore explores the joys of depicting 118 Create a vanitas-style
flowers in the style of the Dutch masters
still life
Howard Lyon creates a still life from personal items inspired
88 Add drama to your still life by the moody, symbolism-laden still lifes of old
Rebecca de Mendonça explains how to get drama into
your pastel work, and how to work lights over darks
124 Make a free and expressive
94 Paint like Cézanne still life in acrylics
Rob Lunn guides you step-by-step through an interpretation of Artist Sylvia Paul shows how to paint this stunning still life painting
Cézanne’s painting method from initial sketch to final flourish

100 Depict the beauty

of orchids with oil
Enzo Forgione shows how to paint the intricate shapes and
patterns of this intriguing flower in a smooth and vibrant style

7
The history of still li fe

10 The story of still life

It’s not just a pretty painting of fruit and flowers. April
Madden explains the surprising history of still life and
how this seemingly gentle genre has a tussle of dramatic
undercurrents roiling beneath its beautifully rendered surface

12 Top ten still life paintings

April Madden shares ten of the greatest still life
paintings ever created, and how they contributed to
the genre and the world around them surface

24 Symbolism in still life

Discover the secret codes hiding in plain sight in
seemingly ordinary paintings of fruit bowls
and table scenes, says April Madden