本书通过精选的150多幅素描、色彩分析、符号、比例研究和漫画阐述了莱利作品中的思考。这些精选作品涵盖了莱利职业生涯的大部分，描述了她**作品的起源和不断变化的本质。通过精选的童年画作、在金匠学院和皇家艺术学院学习期间及之后的作品，以及她早期对抽象主义的探索，莱利的起步阶段也被记录了下来。

本书还收录了四篇此前已出版的专门介绍莱利研究和实践的文章。这些文章由莱利本人、艺术史学家、策展人和博物馆馆长撰写，进一步阐明了绘画的持久作用和对她作品至关重要的探索过程。

This volume richly illustrates the thinking that goes into Riley's work through a selection of over 150 drawings, colour analyses, notations, scale studies, and cartoons. The selection spans most of Riley's working life, tracing the origins and evolving nature of her remarkable body of work. Riley's beginnings are also documented through selected childhood drawings, work made during and immediately following her studies at Goldsmiths' College and the Royal College of Art, and her early explorations into abstraction.

The volume also includes four previously published texts dedicated to Riley's studies and practice written by the artist herself, art historians, curators and museum directors, which shed further light on the enduring role of drawing and the process of exploration central to her work.