A Sketchbook Guide

Venice

A guide to the wonders of Venice, conveyed by means of an artist's sketchbook 
 
Matthew Rice is a long-time observer and illustrator of cities, buildings and all those who inhabit them, with an uncanny ability to express the energy of a place through a few lines of ink and splashes of paint. For years, Venice has been a source of deep creative inspiration for him; and now, in Venice: A Sketchbook Guide, he captures the highlights of this most beguiling of Italian cities. 
 
Unsurprisingly, given his abiding passion for architecture, Matthew provides a wealth of information about the 'stones' of Venice, including an illustrated guide to the main building styles of the city - Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern - and exemplars of its balconies, bridges and campaniles. Further sections explore the city's sestieri - its six residential quarters - as well as its history, paintings, festivals, wildlife and, not least, its cicchetti and aperitivi. 
 
Following the same landscape format as Matthew's real-life sketchbooks, Venice: A Sketchbook Guide will combine enchanting watercolour illustrations with an informed, personal and witty text, and promises to delight all visitors to Venice, armchair or actual.

Matthew Rice is the author of Rice's Architectural Primer, which has been warmly embraced by architectural students and enthusiasts alike. A celebrated illustrator, he is perhaps best known for his longstanding collaboration with the potter Emma Bridgewater. He lives and works in a medieval gatehouse near Oxford.

Matthew Rice is a long-time observer and illustrator of cities, buildings and all those who inhabit them, with an uncanny ability to express the energy of a place through a few lines of ink and splashes of paint. For years, Venice has been a source of deep creative inspiration for him; and now, in Venice: A Sketchbook Guide, he captures the highlights of this most beguiling of Italian cities. 
 
Unsurprisingly, given his abiding passion for architecture, Matthew provides a wealth of information about the 'stones' of Venice, including an illustrated guide to the main building styles of the city - Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern - and exemplars of its balconies, bridges and campaniles. Further sections explore the city's sestieri - its six residential quarters - as well as its history, paintings, festivals, wildlife and, not least, its cicchetti and aperitivi. 
 
Following the same landscape format as Matthew's real-life sketchbooks, Venice: A Sketchbook Guide will combine enchanting watercolour illustrations with an informed, personal and witty text, and promises to delight all visitors to Venice, armchair or actual.

Matthew Rice

A Sketchbook

Matthew Rice is a long-time observer and illustrator of cities, buildings and all those who inhabit them, with an uncanny ability to express the energy of a place through a few lines of ink and splashes of paint. In the first book in this new sketchbook series, he explored the glittering canals of Venice: now he turns his attention to Rome, the Eternal City. 
 
Rome is a place where the ancient, the baroque and the modern clash, and this tension runs through Matthew's paintings. In this guide, he makes sly juxtapositions of people and animals against the backdrop of the city's architectural and artistic wonders, its ruins and its ristoranti. Matthew's ability to notice detail, his sense of light and dark, his expert's knowledge of architecture and how it creates an atmosphere allows him to present Rome, in these pages, in its all its living, breathing splendour. 
 
Following the same landscape format as Matthew's real-life sketchbooks, Rome: A Sketchbook will combine enchanting watercolour illustrations with an informed, personal and witty text, and promises to delight all visitors to Rome, armchair or actual.

Matthew Rice

Books by Matthew Rice

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Watercolour artist Matthew Rice | Work in Progress

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