Library: Visual Art: Finding Sources

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Key Visual Art Resources

How to Research at RDP

Research Strategies for the Arts at RDP
This document outlines tools, tips and tricks for conducting more effective research here at RDP. It outlines boolean operators, phrase searching, and even more advanced tools like an "auto-complete" function that will allow you to search multiple iterations of a word at a time!
A Quick Guide to Finding Images in Artstor
A simple handout outlining how to find images in Artstor. It also highlights some of the neat functionality of the database including the compare function, and the zoom in/out feature!

Databases

Artstor
This cross-disciplinary collection of rights-cleared images includes digital images of art, architecture, and design from books, museums, archives, and slide collections.
Academic Search Ultimate
Access 9,795 full-text journals and magazines in every academic discipline.
Red Deer Polytechnic Permanent Art Collection
The RDP Visual Art Department has a collection of over 800 art objects, recognized as one of the strongest college art collections in western Canada.

Ethnic Craftsmen in Alberta: A Survey Conducted by RDP
This 1974 survey of ethnic crafts in Alberta was conducted by Red Deer College Fine Arts faculty. The project called for a review of settler ethnic 'crafts', functional and decorative, and covering geographical sections of Alberta with a view to obtaining an ethnic and 'craft-wise' balance.
Credo Reference: Art & Art History
A selection of e-books and encyclopedias on Art & Art History.

Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003
This archive contains the full facsimile run of a major illustrated weekly newspaper.

Gale Primary Sources: a barrier-free collection accessible by all Albertans in perpetuity.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
This databases unites multiple archives into a single resource of primary source documents from the 19th century.

Gale Primary Sources: a barrier-free collection accessible by all Albertans in perpetuity.

Oxford Art Online
"Offers access to the most authoritative, inclusive, and easily searchable online art resources available today."

JSTOR
A digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources.

JSTOR is not a current database, but rather an archive of back issues, with a 1-5 year gap between current issues and available back issues.
Project MUSE
This database contains full-text scholarly journals and Open Access academic books in the areas of the arts, humanities, social sciences, and mathematics.

History Subject Guide
To explore the historical context of art, see also the History Subject Guide.

Archive of Destruction
Archive of Destruction is a story-telling platform that brings together narratives around destruction and public art. It is made up of suspect categories, barely believable tales, and life-affirming strangeness. Spanning a hundred years and many continents, it tells cumulative stories of vulnerability, interference, rage, fear, boredom and love.
Arthenon: The Secrets of Vincent van Gogh Discovered
Dr. Wouter van der Veen is a specialist into the life and work of artist Vincent van Gogh. In 2020, Dr. van der Veen identified the location where Van Gogh painted his final masterpiece, Tree Roots, by examining a postcard from around the year 1910. Dr. van der Veen's website includes free eBooks (including his work on Van Gogh's final painting) as well as other articles he has written about the artist.
ArtxHistory
An inclusive framework for an open, equitable art history, ArtxHistory is facilitated by institutions, historians, curators, artists, faculty and students who are committed to deliver quality scholarship that is accessible, inclusive and open.
Black Craftspeople Digital Archive
From 1619 to beyond, Black craftspeople, both free and enslaved, worked to produce the valued architecture, handcrafts, and decorative arts of the American South. The Black Craftspeople Digital Archive seeks to enhance what we know about Black craftspeople by telling both a spatial story and a historically informed story that highlights the lives of Black craftspeople and the objects they produced. The first and second phases of this project focus on Black craftspeople living and laboring in the eighteenth-century South Carolina Lowcountry and mid-nineteenth century Tennessee.
Digital Transgender Archive
The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.
Duke Digital Collections
Digitized historic photographs, advertisements, texts and more from Duke's unique library collections.
Europeana Collection
Browse over 50 million digitized items relevant to cultural heritage including artworks, books, music, and videos on art, newspapers, archaeology, fashion, science, sport and much more.
Getty Research Portal
The Getty Research Portal™ is a free online search platform providing worldwide access to an extensive collection of digitized art history texts from a range of institutions. This multilingual and multicultural union catalog affords art historians and other researchers the ability to search and download complete digital copies of publications devoted to art, architecture, material culture, and related fields. Collections include the Alchemy Collection; Anatomy and Art; Art of the Ancient Americas: Historiography, Provenance and Collections; Botany Collection; Cicognara Collection; Cookbook Collection; Letters and Words; Photography Incunabula Collection; and Reinventing the Americas.

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Find out more about the collection here: https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/portal/index.html
Google Scholar
Google Scholar searches for academic literature, and is especially useful for tracking down articles from citations. On-campus, articles available through RDP Library will show a Request this item @ RDP link. Off-campus, set this functionality by going to Scholar's Settings --> Library Links and searching for Red Deer Polytechnic.
Mapping Philippine Material Culture
This digital humanities project is a visual inventory of Philippine objects dating to the mid-20th century which are in holdings of museums and private collections outside of the Philippines. The open access online inventory gathers photographic and textual information about these objects and aggregates the data in an easy-to- navigate, all-in-one sortable portal.
National Gallery of Canada
Digital resource showcasing items from the national collection.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Catalogue Raisonné Project
This online presentation of still life paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir marks the first installment of the WPI’s long-term project to publish the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s oeuvre.
The Queer Zine Archive Project
“The mission of the Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) is to establish a “living history” archive of past and present queer zines and to encourage current and emerging zine publishers to continue to create. In curating such a unique aspect of culture, we value a collectivist approach that respects the diversity of experiences that fall under the heading “queer.”
Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online
SUCHO is an initiative of over 1,500 international volunteers who are collaborating online to digitize and preserve Ukrainian cultural heritage. Since the start of the invasion, SUCHO has web-archived more than 5,000 websites and 50TB of data of Ukrainian cultural institutions, to prevent these websites from going offline. The websites range from national archives to local museums, from 3D tours of churches to children’s art centers.
Smarthistory
Smarthistory is committed to rewriting the colonial legacies of art history and contains articles and expertise from hundreds of leading art history scholars. All of the resources on the website are published under a Creative Commons non-commercial license and are available ad-free to anyone with an internet connection. Smarthistory is public art history.
Smithsonian Digital Collections
Includes digitized books, manuscripts, photo collections, ephemera and seed catalogues as well as lists of partially digitized bibliographies and indexes (artists' books, artist files), photo, and ephemera collections.
Vincent van Gogh: The Letters
An online, open access archive of van Gogh's correspondence. Search by keywords or browse the collection by period, correspondent, or place. Scanned images of the letters and accompanying sketches are available to browse and study.

Drawing Essentials
Call Number: NC 735 R624 2017 (Main collection, second floor)

"Thoroughly addresses the most significant foundational drawing techniques: basic drawing, figure drawing, and perspective drawing."
Basic Perspective Drawing
Call Number: NC 750 M648 2013 (Main collection, second floor)

"The basic principles and techniques of perspective drawing."
Classical Drawing Atelier: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Studio Practice
Call Number: NC 730 A68 2006 (Main collection, second floor)

The author "uses the works of works of Old Masters and today's most respected realist artists to demonstrate and teach the principles of realist drawing."
Portrait Drawing: The Quick Guide to Mastering Technique and Style
Call Number: e-book (2018)

"This lively, graphic approach to explaining concepts will have you looking and learning with step by step illustrations and expert tips."
Performance Drawing: New Practices Since 1945
Call Number: e-book (2020)

"What is 'performance drawing'? When does a drawing turn into a performance? Is the act of drawing in itself a performative process, whether a viewer is present or not? Through conversation, interviews and essays, the authors illuminate these questions."
Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing
Call Number: NC 95 V583 2005 (Main collection, second floor)

"Presents, in A to Z order, the work of 109 artists who have emerged internationally since 1990 using the medium of drawing."
Figure Drawing: The Structure, Anatomy, and Expressive Design of Human Form by Nathan Goldstein
Call Number: NC 765 G64 2011 (Main collection, second floor)

Appropriate for all beginning and intermediate courses in Art, Basic Drawing, Figure Drawing, or Life Drawing. Providing a concise but comprehensive survey of all matters pertaining to drawing the human figure, this well-illustrated and accurate guide demonstrates the interplay of structure, anatomy, design, and expression in sound figure drawing. This text shows how the integration of these four factors is essential in drawing the figure in a compelling and lucid manner.

Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting
Call Number: ND 195 V584 2011 (Main collection, second floor)

"An up-to-the-minute survey of contemporary painting featuring 115 artists from around the world."
Oil: Creative Techniques
Call Number: ND 1500 A8813 2008 (Main collection, second floor)

"Presents 14 distinctive, strikingly different approaches to oil painting."
Oil Painting Essentials: Mastering Portraits, Figures, Still Lifes, Landscapes, and Interiors
Call Number: ND 1500 K739 2016 (Main collection, second floor)

"Comprehensive breakdown of oil painting provides all of the tools and encouragement painters need."
Color Mixing for Artists: Minimum Colors for Maximum Effect, Using Watercolors, Acrylics, and Oils
Call Number: ND 1488 C656 2002 (Main collection, second floor)

"Learn how to choose and mix colors to produce the maximum color range from the minimum number of paints."
1,500 Color Mixing Recipes for Oil, Acrylic and Watercolor
Call Number: ND 1488 P69 2012 (Main collection, second floor)

"The definitive color-mixing resource for oil, acrylic, and watercolor artists. This user-friendly spiral-bound book is tabbed for quick and easy reference."
The Spirit of the Brush: Chinese Brush Painting Techniques
Call Number: e-book (2017)

"Chinese ink painting is one of the oldest continually practiced art forms in the world . . . ink painting is credited with influencing the development of Western modern art. Its minimalist approach to painting continues to have enormous appeal.

! TIP: Try searching for "pottery craft" or "ceramic sculpture" instead of just ceramics. Ceramics has a lot of industrial/non-art applications!

Ceramics Monthly (magazine online and in print)
Call Number: TP 785 C44 (Main collection, second floor)
"The world's largest, most comprehensive ceramic art magazine."

Global Clay: Themes in World Ceramic Traditions
Call Number: NK 3785 B87 2017 (Main collection, second floor)

"Explores the recurring artistic themes that tie humanity together, explaining how and why those themes appear again and again in worldwide ceramic traditions."
Contemporary Ceramics
Call Number: NK 3930 P484 2000 (Main collection, second floor)

"Organized by the distinctive categories of functional ceramics, figurative pieces, and installation works."
Pit Firing Ceramics: Modern Methods, Ancient Traditions
Call Number: TP 814 W48 2013 (Main collection, second floor)

Explores "the complex nature of pit firing based on historical evidence and the artistic perspectives of contemporary ceramicists."
Naked Clay: Ceramics Without Glaze
Call Number: NK 4265 P477 2004 (Main collection, second floor)

"A practical manual of alternative methods for finishing unglazed ceramics."
Functional Pottery
Call Number: TT 920 H665 2000 (Main collection, second floor)

"Covering historical as well as contemporary pottery."

The Figure in Clay
Call Number: NK 4235 F548 2005 (Main collection, second floor)

"Nine master ceramic artists present their personal approaches to sculpting the human figure."
Sculpture Today
Call Number: NB 198 C65 2007 (Main collection, second floor)

"A comprehensive and beautifully illustrated overview of contemporary sculpture."
Elemental Sculpture: Theory and Practice
Call Number: e-book

"Presents in-depth research of contemporary sculpture, the roots of Elemental Sculpture and its development."
Sculpture Techniques
Call Number: NK 3940 S394 2016 (Main collection, second floor)

"Discover a world of fresh ideas from more than thirty artists as they share their unique methods and inspired designs."
Greek Sculpture
Call Number: NB 90 F85 2016 (Main collection, second floor)

Publication Date: 2016-05-02

"A chronological overview of the plastic and glyptic art forms in the ancient Greek world from the emergence of life-sized marble statuary at the end of the seventh century BC to the appropriation of Greek sculptural traditions by Rome in the first two centuries AD."

Indigenous Resources

Indigenous Resources Guide
This guide will help you find information relevant to Indigenous topics in Treaty 6, Treaty 7, and Métis ancestral lands.

Find Streaming Videos

Academic Video Online
This video collection of documentaries, films, demonstrations and more, spans subject areas like anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, etc.
Criterion-On-Demand
Access to educationally relevant feature films, including classics, documentaries, animated titles, independent films, and foreign films.
Curio
This streaming video collection features programs and teacher resource guides supporting K-12 and post-secondary courses. Includes News in Review, a current-events series. Contains English and French primary sources.
Films on Demand
Instructional and educational streaming videos in a wide range of subject areas. Includes performance rights for classroom use.
Kanopy
A film collection which includes documentaries, indie and foreign films, classics, and blockbuster movies. A small selection has been purchased for use by RDP students, faculty, and staff. Faculty can request films by contacting their Subject Librarian.
National Film Board of Canada
This collection includes documentaries, animations, experimental films, and alternative dramas. Public performance rights for classroom use included.

Flash player required for NFB/Interactive and manage chapters by CAMPUS subscribers.
Videatives Streaming Service
This streaming video collection includes text and video clips demonstrating children in action by capturing the details of what children know and how teachers can build from children's knowledge.

Streaming Video Collections
Access to all RDP Library Streaming Video Collections (including Curio.ca, Films on Demand, NFB, Kanopy, Videatives)

Find Databases & Journals by Title

Databases
A complete listing of databases, electronic resources, and streaming video collections licensed for use by Red Deer Polytechnic students, faculty, and staff.
Find a Journal by Title
Find out if the Library has access to a specific journal.

Interlibrary Loans & Other Libraries

Interlibrary Loan FAQ

RDP Library can bring in items from libraries across North America for you.

Interlibrary Loan Requests
Request articles, books, and other items not owned by RDP Library.
Red Deer Public Library
Students, use your iCard at Red Deer Public Library (RDPL).

Off-Campus Access

Use your RDP email and password to access databases and e-resources off-campus.

Note that your RDP email requires multi-factor authentication (MFA). Learn about MFA.