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What can I possibly say to sum up my recent visit to the Venice Biennale, this onceevery- other-year event first established in 1895 to promote Italian art before developing into an international exhibition with countries competing to be ‘best in show’? It’s an utterly overwhelming, totally bemusing theme park of contemporary world art. It consists of two main parts: 90 national pavilions organised by the participating countries, each with its own bespoke exhibition featuring an artist, or artists, commissioned to represent the host country, scattered around the city’s public gardens and its vast former arsenal (the Arsenale); plus a huge central exhibition entitled ‘May You Live In Interesting Times’. The event presents world art created in myriad contemporary media (there’s so much video it’s almost passé), on colossal scales and in forms only consumable in these vast spaces. Nobody can take in this much art. You don’t have time for anything more than a quick walk past and through the work. It’s relentless.

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December 19
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The Artist
YOUR VIEWS
LETTERS, EMAILS AND COMMENTS
THE ART WORLD
NEWS, VIEWS, INFORMATION AND SPECIAL EVENTS IN THE ART WORLD
FEATURES
Painting holiday FAQs
Richard Pikesley, The Artist painting holiday tutor, answers some of your queries about joining a painting holiday
A painter’s journey
The path to becoming a successful artist is not always straightforward – Paul Brown shares his personal journey in the hope that it will inspire you not to lose hope
ART BOOKS
The regularity with which flower painting books appear
OPPORTUNITIES & COMPETITIONS
Check out the latest competitions to enter and make a note of important deadlines
PaintersOnline editor’s choice
Meet this month’s editor’s choice winner from our PaintersOnline gallery
CHARLES WILLIAMS’ MUSINGS
Manet and Cézanne
PRACTICALS
Portrait study in oil
David Curtis explains his technique for obtaining a likeness with a demonstration of his son in oil
Winter stream
Paul Talbot-Greaves reveals how to use layers of acrylic to add interest to a featureless landscape, in five easy stages
Enjoy success with interior scenes
Amanda Hyatt shows how to simplify interior subjects and shares her top ten tips as she demonstrates how to paint an interior scene in watercolour
Pastel basics
In the first of three articles, Robert Brindley discusses the merits of painting with pastels, including advice on basic techniques, and demonstrates a simple pastel landscape
DECEMBER
In the last article in this series, Geoff Hunt works up a studio painting from a plein-air sketch
Lips
Kathy Barker continues her series on portraiture by taking you through the basics of painting lips – including what to look for in terms of shape, colours and teeth
Why pattern is important
Capture your viewers’ attention by introducing pattern when designing your paintings, as Bob Brandt explains
Irises
Soraya French finds plenty of inspiration from irises – as she says, their shapes and colours provide an ideal opportunity to explore different compositions in vibrant mixed media
Developing an idea
Michele Del Campo documents a recent narrative composition from original concept to completion as he works through the various stages of the painting
The colours of winter
Paul Weaver finds the fluid nature of watercolour perfect for capturing the subtle greys and soft atmosphere of fog, mist and rain as he demonstrates here, with suggestions for mixing the perfect grey for your needs
Landscape layers
Robert Dutton explains how Royal Talens’ Amsterdam Photo Transfer Gel helped create new exciting directions and a more abstract approach in his mixed-media paintings