Matthew Rice – författare

Learning to draw needn't be complicated or expensive, nor does one need a particularly spectacular subject to draw. In this, his first practical art book, artist Matthew Rice encourages readers to look at and draw the scenes around them - the desk they are sitting at, the view out the window, a bowl of produce from the supermarket. And it is by truly sitting with and engaging with our everyday world that drawing skills can be learnt and strengthened, confidence built, and a new mindful creative activity developed.A bunch of spring onions can be a starting point when thinking about shading and form. The view from your kitchen window becomes an exercise in perspective and measuring lines. A vase full of flowers is the perfect subject to develop your skills in detailed drawing and three-dimensional structure. Little by little, by following the ten step-by-step exercises in the book, readers will build the skills and techniques to approach drawing any scene with confidence and ease. "To know how to draw, you need to think about how to look, because to draw is to look and report in on what you have seen. As we learn to draw better we also learn to understand better: to analyze, explore and comprehend our world and its inhabitants. The exercise is more than an expression of a desire to decorate, to kill time or amuse. It is in fact a vital and near universal mode of communication that allows us to speak to those with whom we share no other common language." - Matthew Rice

A guide to the wonders of Venice, conveyed by means of an artist's sketchbookMatthew 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.

A guide to the glories of Rome, conveyed by means of an artist's sketchbookMatthew 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.

Discover Oxford, one of the jewels of European architecture. Much loved and much visited, the city offers an unparalleled collection of the best of English building through the centuries.Matthew Rice's Oxford is a feast of delightful watercolour illustrations and an informed and witty text, explaining how the city came into being and what to look out for today.While the focus is on architectural detail, Rice describes how the city has been shaped by its history, topography and geology, but most of all by generations of patrons who had the education and the resources to commission work from the greatest architects and builders of their day, an astonishing range of which still stands.Ranging from the medieval to the contemporary, the book covers all the iconic buildings, such as the Radcliffe Camera, the Sheldonian Theatre and the college quads, as well as the distinctive details that you might otherwise miss.More than anywhere else in England, it is possible in Oxford to take in the history of English architecture simply by walking today's streets, lanes, parks and meadows. This book is the perfect guide.

The countryside, towns and cities of Britain are full of churches. They represent some of the most iconic, beautiful and occasionally bizarre buildings in the country. They have a lot to say about our history, our art and our ideas. But how do you read them? Through charming illustrations, Rice's Church Primer reveals the basic grammar and vocabulary of church architecture throughout the United Kingdom. As Matthew Rice says, 'Once you can speak any language, conversations can begin, but without it communications can only be brief and brutish. The same is the case with Architecture: an inability to describe the component parts of a building leaves one tongue-tied and unable to begin to discuss what is or is not exciting, dull or peculiar about it.' Rice's Church Primer explains the language of architecture in churches, from the restrained Norman style of William the Conqueror to the gilded excesses of the Baroque. The primer begins with an explanation of the basic 'Grammar' of churches: elevation, plan, fronts, vaults and towers. This allows the reader to easily understand what follows. Next comes the 'Vocabulary' of styles in chronological order, from ancient Saxon churches to modern cathedrals. Each period covers component parts like doors, windows, towers, pews, panelling and pulpits. Finally, there is a map pinpointing some of the best churches around the country, so you can practise your newfound fluency in real life.With Matthew Rice's elegant and witty illustrations to guide you, suddenly you'll understand why naves are necessary, why towers are built as tall as possible and why sometimes even the most respectable church needs a good flying buttress.

A new, larger format edition of Rice's Architectural Primer.This beautifully illustrated book covers the grammar and vocabulary of British buildings, explaining the evolution of styles from Norman castles to Norman Foster. Its aim is to enable the reader to recognise, understand and date any British building. As Matthew Rice says, ‘Once you can speak any language, conversation can begin, but without it communications can only be brief and brutish. The same is the case with Architecture: an inability to describe the component parts of a building leaves one tongue-tied and unable to begin to discuss what is or is not exciting, dull or peculiar about it.' With this book in your hand, buildings will break down beguilingly into their component parts, ready for inspection and discussion. There will be no more references to 'that curly bit on top of the thing with the square protrusions'. Fluent in the world of volutes, hood moulds, lobed architraves and bucrania, you will be able to leave a cathedral or country house with as much to talk about as a film or play.Complete with over 400 exquisite watercolour illustrations and hand-drawn annotations, this is a joyous celebration of British buildings and will allow you to observe and describe the world around you afresh.

Set during a single twelve-hour night shift in a factory, plastic is a book-length poem exploring the life of the industrial worker turned poet.Bringing together memoir, ekphrasis and satire, Bplastic is based on Matthew Rice’s experience working in a plastic moulding factory for ten years. Illustrating alienated twenty-first-century Irish labour in poetic form, plastic engages with the inflictions and implications of a ‘post-industrial’, ‘post-Troubles’ society, all while weaving in depictions of factory work from literature, film and the visual arts.Time-stamped to highlight the claustrophobia of the worker’s experience, this is a poem about feeling a calling while being submerged in the world of menial labour – making plastic airplane parts by night, making poetry by day, uniting what Jacques Rancière calls the ‘labourers in love with the intellectual nights’ and those ‘intellectuals in love with the toilsome and glorious days of the labouring people.’ plastic’s evocation and lucidity moves with grace through working class realities and hopeful imaginings.