In this talk I will share tips, tricks and anecdotes I learned while doing research on computer graphics tools for designers. While interviews and field studies may seem the best way to understand how artists work, I will recommend to go to the bookstore instead! I will give several examples of art books that greatly inspired research by providing detail descriptions of long standing artistic techniques. However, recommendations from art books are often too vague to be directly implemented as algorithms. I will discuss how to reinforce insights from art literature with knowledge in perception, rendering and differential geometry. I will illustrate the talk with examples from my own research as well as from representative work in the field.