"Many painters enjoy working outdoors when the weather is good (and they need to know how to deal with it when the weather changes)! This book includes the best instruction on the special challenges of painting landscapes outdoors from a variety of the best plein-air artists working today in all major media-oil, pastel, watercolor, acrylic and gouache. - Materials, site selection and practical tips - Values, shapes, composition, color and elements of landscape painting - Bringing outdoor studies back into the studio - Complete start-to-finish demonstrations - Hundreds of gorgeous images"--

Paint with passion, purpose and pleasure What do you want your landscape painting to say about this place, this moment? How do you use the visual vocabulary - line, shape, value, color, edges - to say it? With this book, your conversation with nature will direct your brush. With an exhilarating, synergistic combination of indoor and outdoor painting, Kevin Macpherson shows you how to create personal, poetic landscapes that capture the feeling of being there. Learn how to: • Use a limited palette in a way that is more liberating than limiting • Experience nature to the fullest and capture its vibrancy back in the studio through photos, sketches and outdoor studies • Cope with the fleeting qualities of atmosphere and light by establishing a value plan early and sticking with it • Incorporate impressionistic touches of broken color to give your landscape a depth and vibrancy that enhances its realism • Approach painting as a layering and corrective process that encourages non-formulaic solutions Stimulating warm-up exercises in the studio prepare you for your adventures outside, while eight step-by-step demonstrations show you how to put these methods into action. Throughout, Macpherson's own light-filled landscapes illustrate the power of these techniques. Full of fresh air and fresh art, Landscape Painting Inside and Out will guide and encourage beginners while challenging more accomplished artists to bring greater vitality and a more natural, less formulaic finish to their paintings.

Because nature is so expansive and complex, so varied in its range of light, landscape painters often have to look further and more deeply to find form and structure, value patterns, and an organized arrangement of shapes. In Landscape Painting, Mitchell Albala shares his concepts and practices for translating nature's grandeur, complexity, and color dynamics into convincing representations of space and light. Concise, practical, and inspirational, Landscape Painting focuses on the greatest challenges for the landscape artist, such as: • Simplification and Massing: Learn to reduce nature's complexity by looking beneath the surface of a subject to discover the form's basic masses and shapes.• Color and Light: Explore color theory as it specifically applies to the landscape, and learn the various strategies painters use to capture the illusion of natural light.• Selection and Composition: Learn to select wisely from nature's vast panorama. Albala shows you the essential cues to look for and how to find the most promising subject from a world of possibilities. The lessons in Landscape Painting—based on observation rather than imitation and applicable to both plein air and studio practice—are accompanied by painting examples, demonstrations, photographs, and diagrams. Illustrations draw from the work of more than 40 contemporary artists and such masters of landscape painting as John Constable, Sanford Gifford, and Claude Monet. Based on Albala's 25 years of experience and the proven methods taught at his successful plein air workshops, this in-depth guide to all aspects of landscape painting is a must-have for anyone getting started in the genre, as well as more experienced practitioners who want to hone their skills or learn new perspectives.

Spring is the perfect time to go outside and experience the wonders of nature through painting, even if social distancing. Plein air painting, the art of painting outdoors, offers possibilities artists can’t find inside the studio. When painters set up easels outside, they put themselves in direct contact with nature. Responsiveness to the landscape’s changing light, forms, and colors yields work that’s lively and spontaneous. However, plein air painting also poses a set of challenges not encountered in the studio. There are matters of choosing a location, rationing the number of supplies to bring, working within a time limit, adjusting to sudden changes in weather, and possibly even testing physical endurance when transporting equipment to a painting site. The Art of Plein Air Painting presents the full picture of what painting en plein air requires. Devoted plein air artist M. Stephen Doherty guides readers through how to choose the best spot, which materials and tools to bring, and the basics of mixing colors and preparing canvases and panels ahead of time. Sidebars and step-by-step demonstrations cover topics that range from sketching out a composition to starting a painting with washes or lines, toning a surface, and doing a cityscape. Doherty even teaches how to do a nocturne—a painting made after the sun has gone down. Works by famous plein air painters, such as Claude Monet and John Singer Sargent, are discussed, along with works by some of today’s best plein air artists. Doherty interviews contemporary masters Mark Boedges, Clyde Aspevig, Kathryn Stats, Michael Godfrey, Joseph McGurl, and Clive C. Tyler to gain a deeper insight into the plein air process. Finally, the book contains information on plein air events—workshops, county festivals, and juried shows—now being held across North America, as well as advice on selling finished work.

Landscape is a compelling form of artistic expression long favored by professional artists and avid hobbyists alike. In its comprehensive approach to the topic, this volume presents diverse ways to depict nature, with expert guidance offered for drawing with pencil, pen and ink, and charcoal, and painting with oils and pastels. With this single source at hand, readers are able to learn and hone skills in each medium, greatly enriching their experience of creating landscape art. Clear, illustrated step-by-step demonstrations are included throughout.

Push Color Beyond the Ordinary Let go of what you see, and paint what you feel! Brilliant Color reveals a new way of thinking about color, empowering you to push the envelope beyond ordinary realism into bold landscapes full of life and energy. The transformation begins by learning to see color as value. Starting with short demos featuring diagrams, color wheels and side-by-side visual comparisons, award-winning artist Julie Gilbert Pollard shows you how to liberate your use of color to capture the lively essence of every landscape. It's not about complex color theory or painstaking attempts to paint exactly what you see. Rather, it's about pushing color to warmer or cooler extremes for stronger contrasts. Julie's signature style blends acrylic underpainting with water-mixable oils to produce striking luminosity in less time and fewer layers than traditional oil painting techniques. Ten complete step-by-step demonstrations show you how to paint gorgeous landscapes with an inspiring range of settings and seasons. Each in-depth demonstration features foolproof color mixing charts, reference photos, initial sketches, and numbered steps with detailed captions. Simply follow along and give it a try. In no time, you'll have what it takes to make your colors zing and your paintings glow.