Composition
The Edge of the Canvas: Why Borders Change a Painting
Learn how to read a painting’s edge, tell a closed composition from an open one, and use a short looking exercise to…
The reading shelf
All articles
Browse pieces on looking, materials, composition, art history and making. Each starts with a particular detail and follows what it can help a reader notice.
Materials
Watercolour and Gouache: Two Ways to Build a Painted Surface
Watercolour and gouache suit different ways of building a painted surface: choose the one that matches your preferred…
Art History
Before the Studio: Where Artists Worked
Artist workplaces shaped tools, working habits and encounters with viewers. Learn to read practical clues in artworks…
Looking
The Hidden Symbol Trap: When a Detail Is Just a Detail
Learn how to read repeated objects in art without inventing secret meanings, using visible evidence to separate…
Making
A Ten-Minute Drawing from One Household Object
A ten-minute drawing from one household object trains your eye to compare outline and proportion before detail, using…
Our point of view
Attention is a way into art
You do not need specialist vocabulary to look carefully. Start with what you notice; then consider how the work was made and what its choices invite you to see.