My Favorite Art Books
I love reading and studying (and collecting) Art books.
Do you?
My Doodles
I have a life-long love for books. I read something everyday. I’m known to have several books “going” at one time and I have no problem picking up where I left off. My mother was a reader too.
Lately, I’ve been reading Art books. They can be “How To Paint” books, or about Marketing your Art, or just what I call “Coffee Table picture books“. I love them all.
I have friends who introduced me to Russian artists and I have some of those books too. I have Art History books, books on Impressionistic Art, on Abstract Art, on Tonalism, on Portraits, on Drawing, on Oil Painting, on Acrylic Painting and I could go on and on.
Today I’m going to share 3 of my Favorite Books. Don’t get me wrong if I’m leaving some out, as I have tons of Favorite Books! And in time, I’ll share more.
Please forgive me for the quality of the images I am sharing. Some are wonky! Especially the books that are big as they are hard to put on my small copy machine surface. I apologize for this.
I hope you enjoy these. If anyone wants the ISBN number of any of these just leave me a message!
Landscape Painting Inside & Out
by Kevin Macpherson
This was one of my first oil painting books, and I cherish it. This book covers both painting outdoors and in your studio. Whenever you take on to learn a new skill, there is always a learning curve. Kevin believes that if you are willing to to go through the awkward learning curve and learn the general knowledge necessary, you can start to create art. He admits there will be trials and tribulations, reasons to celebrate, and reasons to laugh at some of the awful work you will create. Painting takes time to learn, takes lots of practice, takes the willingness to take risks and not being afraid to fail. You just need to remain curious and passionate about learning this new skill.
In this book, Kevin shares his materials he uses for both inside (Studio) and outdoor painting. He teaches about the power of starting with a limited palette, how to set up your palette, about the importance of understanding color, value, shapes, and edges. He gives step-by-step demonstrations and practice exercises. It is full of very useful and practical information. I really think you will enjoy this “how-to” book.
Kevin has written many other great books, has instructional DVD’s and teaches workshops as well. His first book, which I also have and love, is Oil Painting with Color and Light. Other books include, Reflections on a Pond: A Visual Journal, and Conversations with Nature: Oil painting in the tradition of Plein Air. His DVD is called The Magic Grid: Landscapes. He also has 5 virtual Plein air painting adventures from many beautiful cities around the world, that you can stream.
Kevin is a wonderful teacher and artist, check him out, he will not disappoint. And what a sense of humor!!!!
Oil Painting The Workshop Experience
By Ted Goerschner
One of my first workshop instructors, JoAnn Walker Williams, recommended her students to read this entire book before coming to her class. I ordered it right away and absolutely love the book. She had attended several of his workshops out in California, and had a collection of his paintings which she shared with us.
The book is like a 7-day intensive painting workshop in print. On Day One, he discusses his set-up, his palette choices, and how to make his famous “Goerschner Grays.” He suggests his readers (students) to prop up his book beside their easel and paint along with him from the beginning of this 7 day experience until the end. Then study the critiques he gives with each demo. He offers up all his secrets and tips to help you through each exercise. He shares his color-mixing system and the importance of using grays to unify your painting. He explains his 5 color schemes, monochromatic, analogous, triadic, complementary, and split compementary, and has examples of each. He demonstrates how to start a painting with a block in, how to build your scene using compositions he discussed, how to develop the middle ground & foreground and how to solve problems. He teaches you how to develop a point of interest and do finishing touches.
Ted teaches the importance of shapes, to think in terms of abstract shapes and not objects, how to develop these shapes and relate the shapes to each other. He goes over creating form, atmosphere, adding accents, creating the correct edges, bringing up the background, and how to keep a viewer’s eye moving throughout your painting.
This book is a true gem, one you will refer back to time and time again!
Alla Prima
Everything I Know About Painting
By Richard Schmid
This book of Richard Schmid’s is probably or should be in the studio of all artists. This is just one of many books he has written. (Amazon has most all his books). He shares a lifetime of artistic wisdom in how he paints, and what he’s learned along the way. He paints from life (Direct painting) and usually in one session (alla prima), and in oils. He believes for a painting to succeed, “a minimum of three things must come from you—and only you. The first thing is knowing why you want to paint your subject, the second is an analytical grasp of what you see, and the third is the skill to control the process of painting.” These three ideas underlie everything he shares in his books.
His book covers all the stages of painting, including getting ideas, starting a painting, drawing, values, edges, color, light, composition and technique. He discusses his color palette choices and why he choses these colors. He goes in depth on color mixing. His mentor, Bill Mosby, made his students do the legendary color charts, which he did and treasured his whole painting career. Now he recommends these charts to his students and readers. I have done these and you truly learn so much and they become a valuable resource. They are tedious to do and may take a couple of weeks to complete them, but they are worth the time and effort.
This particular book does not have any step by step pictures of how to start and complete a painting, but it is full of beautiful paintings of Richard’s for you to refer to and enjoy. He wanted his readers to look at the pictures of his paintings to see what he sees when he looks at his subjects. I found this to be extremely valuable. Learning to see….isn’t that half the battle!!
There are many more of my favorite books for artists, collectors, and those interested in all things creative out there. I will continue sharing them in future posts, so stay tuned! I’ve already got 4 more picked out to show you.
Hope you enjoyed my blog post.
