 • Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light & Color by Kevin Macpherson is a lavishly illustrated, yet practical, book for oil painters at all skill levels. Macpherson, a popular teacher of Impressionist plein air painting, writes a clear text that is both instructional and inspiring. Macpherson states "Anyone can learn to paint," and then proceeds to show you how to do it with a limited palette of four colors plus white. The book includes lots of demos for indoor still life, outdoor landscape and pochade box (small format) painting. |
 • Fast Sketching Techniques by David Rankin is based on quick-draw techniques rather than classic methods of drawing. Rankin explains the difference between sketching and drawing, emphasizing the importance of practicing rapid linework with basic shapes and backing up your sketches with photo references for painting. Using soft drawing pencils Rankin makes quick drawings of people, landscapes and animals and shows how to shade the drawings by blending. The techniques are vey doable. Rankin makes sketching look like fun for everyone. |
 • Painting Greeting Cards in Watercolor by Jacqueline Penney demonstrates easy techniques for small format paintings, which could easily be used for other applications than greeting cards. Penney uses a good selection of colors and includes details on supplies. Paintings can be done in the studio or while on vacation. Rule #1 is "Keep it simple." There are step-by-step demos of every technique using different palettes and subjects. There is also a nice little creative section on using accidental effects. The book is most likely to appeal to beginners. |
 • Natural Watercolors emphasizes painting from nature using simple supplies and a limited palette of colors. The emphasis is on seeing and analyzing the aspects of your subject. There are a number of learn-by-doing demos, but on the whole, the artwork is more like sketches than paintings. The book seems rather disorganized, so it may be confusing for beginners, although the techniques are quite simple. Taylor has some interesting thoughts on using tinted papers for watercolors, an uncommon approach in watercolor. |
 • Paint With the Watercolor Masters by Jonathon Stephenson contains a brief srvey of the history of painting, including some interesting information on pigments and watercolor paints. The book is subtitled: "A Step-by-step Guide to Materials & Techniques for Today's Artists." The techniques of a selected group of watercolor masters, including Turner and Sargent, are analyzed; step-by-step demonstrations show how you can recreate their methods. Most are in the traditional British style of watercolor painting. The numerous illustrations are outstanding. |
 • David Pyle's book, Paint & Colors: What Every Artist Needs to Know, is a comprehensive text, covering everything from the history of pigments to the behavior of paints in watercolor, oil and acrylics. Pyle also covers many safety issues not addressed in other books. This is a useful studio book for artists today, who aren't directly involved in the manufacturer of their materials. Pyle knows his stuff and has written a user-friendly, richly illustrated guide for artists. |
 • Tom Lynch's book, Watercolor Secrets is a good source for artists who want to paint color and light effects, something that Lynch is very good at. Lynch demos a lot of tricks and techniques, and emphasizes the importance of working out the values in value sketches before painting. There is a chapter on how to rescue a painting, a popular feature of Tom's many workshops. The book is filled with hands-on photographs of techniques, making them relatively easy to replicate. |
 • Children & Painting by Cathy Weisman Topal is a fine book for parents and for teachers of children and adult beginners. The book includes doable projects with excellent information on the materials needed for each activity. It is beautifully illustrated with a wide variety of colorful examples that stimulate the imagination. Anyone would benefit from using this book to play with paint in a non-intimidating manner. You don't have to be an "artiste" to love to paint. |
 • Robert Lovett's book, The Art of Designing Watercolors, is filled with demos and good advice. To illustrate the how and why of design, Lovett uses simple materials and emphasizes the importance of practice. Planning of colors and values are key. He also writes about seeing and observing to capture detail and shapes to build the painting. There are lots of demos of different subjects, some more effective than others, but all contributing to the overall usefulness of the book. Lovett says, "Every element in a painting should contribute to the whole." |
 The Art of Paper Collage by Susan Pickering Rothamel includes good information on archival procedures and materials, a subject that should concern every collage artist. In addition to many elegant examples of collage fine art, there are some craft-like projects, too, all of which are well done. The photos of papers available are excellent and a good reference for collage artists. The book is filled with techniques demos and projects. |
| Be sure to check out my Awesome Book List page for hundreds of recommended books with direct links to Amazon.com for reviews and ordering. |
