ART-MAKING Yatora prepares for the first-year show, where he'll have to pass an open review from intimidating professors and celebrity guest lecturers. To make matters worse, the self-directed nature of the assignment is more stifling than freeing, and he's no longer sure: Does he even like art? Why did he ever start? An all-nighter in Shibuya may hold the answer, but Yatora's not with his usual boys...

SELF-PORTRAIT Yatora makes the best of a bad situation during TUA's first exam, and he must surpass these efforts for the second. But after all he’s gone through, Yatora is feeling a little out of sorts. To get back on track, he’ll have to step out of the studio and into new lighting… With the help of an old friend, Yatora bares his soul and some skin to take on his latest challenge: the nude self-portrait.

Yatora now has new materials in his tool box and a wider range of expression under his belt. But a week before the first exam, Ooba-sensei says he’s missing a crucial edge… With so much at stake, Yatora’s self-doubt brings him lower than ever before. Still, he has his fire, his resilience—and he might just get a lucky break, too.

Relief is short-lived for Yatora after his first competition, where his piece was higher ranked than he expected, but far from his dream school’s standards. While he’s prepared to give Ooba-sensei’s challenges everything he’s got…what if all he’s got is still not enough? With 100 days until university exams, he must seize what’s beyond—beyond his singular drive, learned technique, and hard work—to produce an answer only he can.

After her parents get divorced, Emily finds comfort in making and learning about art.

"This is not just another book: it is a major achievement."—Eric R. Wolf, author of Europe and the People Without History

New insights into Picasso's Blue Period, through innovative technology that reveals hidden compositions, motifs and alterations, plus hitherto unknown information on the artist's materials and process This lavishly illustrated volume reexamines Pablo Picasso's famous Blue Period (1901-04) in paintings, works on paper and sculpture. Relying on new information gleaned from technical studies performed on The Blue Room (Le Tub) (1901), Crouching Beggarwoman (La Miséreuse accroupie) (1902) and The Soup (La Soupe) (1903), this multidisciplinary volume combines art history and advanced conservation science in order to show how the young Picasso fashioned a distinct style and a pronounced artistic identity as he adapted the artistic lessons of fin-de-siècle Paris to the social and political climate of an economically struggling Barcelona. Essays, a chronology and a summary of conservation findings contextualize Picasso's experimental approach to painting during the Blue Period. A major contribution to the burgeoning field of technical art history, Picasso: Painting the Blue Period advances new scholarship on one of the most critical episodes in 20th-century modernism.