With its combination of valuable tips, techniques, and engaging step-by-step painting lessons, Mastering Oil Painting is an ideal resource for aspiring artists who desire to work in oil.

Some of the most popular art instruction books ever written have been based on student notes culled over the years from actual workshop sessions, with all their power and immediacy - and with practical, on-to-one contact between student and teacher. This is such a book. For more than two years, Linda Cateura has pursued teacher / artist David A. Leffel, notebook in hand, as he critiqued the work of students. Linda Cateura's succinct notes capture his insights, philosophy, painting hints, and general comments. Leffel's classic, painterly, twentieth-century old master style, much in the manner of Rembrandt or Chardin, affords ample illustration of the ideas expressed - through his many paintings, details, demonstrations, and diagrams, almost all in color. No matter what your level of ability, there is something here to apply to your own work, ideas that will cause you to rething your own ways of painting, hints to save you effort, or solutions to persistent painting problems.

An essential guide to the oil painting techniques that will allow artists to master a variety of subjects, including figures, portraits, still life, landscapes, and interiors. Many painters limit themselves to one type of subject matter, but in Oil Painting Essentials, artist and art instructor Gregg Kreutz shows how a multi-genre approach can dramatically improve your painting skills. Arranged by category, each chapter covers both the essentials specific to that subject matter and those that apply to all genres. Through step-by-step lessons and examples from his own oil paintings, Kreutz shows how you can strengthen your skillset for one genre by painting in another. This comprehensive exploration of the conceptual and practical issues behind oil painting provides all of the tools and encouragement you need to successfully take on any type of oil painting.

"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"--

Acrylic, watercolours, oil, and pastel colours are the four classical means of artistic expression in painting. With this practice-oriented introduction readers can learn about them by trying their own hand at painting and perfecting their skills step-by-step. The book provides an overview of the artist's tools and the various types of painting. The wealth of illustrative information ranges from simple everyday objects to still life and landscapes, the human body and portrait painting. Examples of each genre demonstrate the various stages of painting a picture. This enables learners to improve their technique from the very first sketch to the most complex composition: Mastering the Art of Painting is the ideal introduction for the prospective artist!

Landscapes in Oil is the first-ever comprehensive guide to classical landscape painting reinterpreted for the twenty-first century. Drawing from the tradition established by American painters of the Hudson River School--artists like Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and George Inness--author and painter Ken Salaz reveals great masters' philosophy and methods, updating their approaches for the contemporary landscape painter. Beginning painters are given the basic tools and step-by-step demonstrations, intermediate painters are challenged with unpublished techniques that allow them to break through to the next level, and advanced painters learn to apply their skills under unified theories. Landscapes in Oil devotes a chapter to each of the fundamental elements of landscape painting--drawing, value, color, composition, and light quality--and offers critical advice on selecting tools and materials, choosing colors, and structuring your palette for best results. Emphasizing the necessity of plein air drawing and painting, Salaz demonstrates how to translate small, quick studies made outdoors into full-scale studio paintings. He provides detailed step-by-step breakdowns of the creation of four of his own paintings, focusing not only on application but also on the ideas that underpin every decision a landscape painter must make. The scores of landscape masterworks, past and present, that illustrate this book have been carefully chosen for their aesthetic power and because each embodies a specific aspect of the landscape painter's craft. For Salaz, landscape painting is a noble pursuit, and the goal of the landscape artist is not to paint "pretty pictures" but to create compelling images that express human beings' profound connection to nature in all its diversity and grandeur. At a time when classical landscape is enjoying a renaissance in art schools, ateliers, and galleries across North America, this book is an essential resource for beginning and experienced painters alike.

Internationally renowned painter Timothy Easton shows beginners how combining composition, tonal contrast, color texture, and light magically brings a subject to life on canvas. 76 color and 25 b&w illustrations.