Painting Better Landscapes

From dust jacket notes: "Why is it so easy to spot errors in other people's paintings, yet so hard to see them in our own It is because we often lack the knowledge of the basic aesthetic principles as a standard to measure our own paintings against. Margaret Kessler, an artist and teacher, sets out to rectify this. By teaching the basic principles behind good art - specifically landscape art - she shows how to create better landscape paintings And by training our eyes, we learn to become our own best critics. The book begins with a review of the thinking and the techniques that go into a typical landscape painting - from the initial gathering of reference material and the selection of a subject to the actual stages of the painting process. The fifteen chapters that follow clarify the essential theories that lie behind those seemingly simple stages of painting: visualizing the idea, composing it, establishing the basic value foundation, blocking in the color harmony, and refining the details. Using her own paintings as examples - supplemented by diagrams, studies, chart, photographs of the original inspiring landscape, and occasionally brief step-by-step breakdowns of initial stages - Kessler shows what makes a good painting, or a poor one. Every chapter ends with a handy box of question, which will serve to identify the weaknesses and strengths in your own painting. In the final section, by critiquing some of her own paintings - exposing the problems ad explaining how she corrected them - Kessler shows how to apply the lessons of the book to your own work...."
Author: Kessler, Margaret

Publisher: Watson-Guptill

Binding: Hardcover

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0823035751

ISBN-13: 9780823035755