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| The Big Book of Painting Nature in Oil | 
 enlarge | Authors: S. Allyn Schaeffer, John Shaw
Publisher: Watson-Guptill
Category: Book
List Price: $32.50
Buy New: $10.80
You Save: $21.70 (67%)
Buy New/Used from $10.80
Avg. Customer Rating:  (14 reviews)
Sales Rank: 186884
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0823005038
Dewey Decimal Number: 751.45436
EAN: 9780823005031
ASIN: 0823005038
Publication Date: February 1, 1991
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Offers 134 self-contained lessons in painting all elements of the landscape. An introductory section reviews the basics of materials, techniques and colour handling and is followed by the illustrated lessons that form the basis of the book. These lessons cover the entire range of oil painting techniques and the in-depth instruction is enhanced by step-by-step demonstrations, details of finished paintings and assignments that encourage readers to apply what they have learned to other painting situations. This book is aimed specifically at the beginning and intermediate level landscape painter.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 A wonderful collection painting solutions!! May 22, 2008
This book offers the beginning oil painter many useful suggestions to typical problems. A great book to use as a guide when exploring the great big world of oil painting.The author walks you through each solution ...step by step..each step illustrated with a wonderfully painted example. This is really big book full of useful information.
The Big Book of Painting Nature in Oil December 7, 2007
Really helpful book. Very well organized. Easy to find any subject or any method. Step by step instructions. Excellent pictures, easy to follow instructions.
 ugly paintings August 9, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The photos in the book are all beautiful. But it's disappointing that most of the paintings are very ugly after copying and adapting from the photos. To me, the illustrations of the artists are just of beginners' effort. It's not to criticize that the illustrations are not realistic, nor impressionistic, but their color and design lose the most interesting spirit of nature from the original photos.
Technique Depth July 7, 2007
I'm basically a beginning oil painter however I'm an Architect and I've drawn and done colored presentations my whole life. I've painted with acrylics and water colors in the past so I have some reasonable sense of composition and technique within these mediums therefore I wasn't looking for a beginners book on oil painting as I knew I just needed to experiment a lot with oils to get the feel of the medium yet I needed some guidance on the immediate basics of techniques for oils versus the other mediums I just mentioned and how best to approach painting various subject matters.
A friend turned me on to this book and I couldn't be happier. If you have any beginning experience with oils I HIGHLY recommend this book. I carry it with me wherever I go so that I can spend a few down moments picking up some more tips. If landscapes in particular are your thing then this books has it all. Mind you it's not an extremely in depth book on EXACTLY how to do everything as it leaves it up to you to connect the dots in your way. If you're painting from a photograph it teaches you how best to interpret the scene so that what is a photograph remains such and it gives you ideas, techniques and suggestions as to how to best exhibit this scene in oil and give it it's own spirit. If trees are giving you a problem then somewhere in this book you'll find a solution. If you're stuck on skies, water, foliage or anything that you would ever run into as regarding a landscape then I can almost assure you that you'll find something in this book to help guide you through your predicament. Trees in the snow? No problem they're in there. His teaching technique is general and loose yet it allows you to watch a master and learn how he might tackle the problem.
Mind you this is not a follow along book as you'll need some beginning experience however if you're wanting to take the reigns and what you need is occasional guidance then this is a GREAT REFERENCE book. This book will not tie you down with step by step explanations on how to exactly do this or that and it therefore allows you your freedom yet if you occasionally need someone on your shoulder to get you out of this or that predicament then it'd buy this book. There is no exaggeration when he entitles it the BIG BOOK of.... as that it is.
Great concept January 29, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I love the idea of dividing difficult subjects into different sections with advice and examples of how to tackle each. This book is divided into tree, sky and water sections, with subsections for each. Under the sky section, for example, are lessons on painting cloud-streaked skies, moody skies, skies after a storm, night skies and about forty more varieties of skies, with some work in progress pictures in many of the sections and side-by-side comparisons of the reference photo versus the actual painting.
Unfortunately, I think the paintings themselves fall short in this book. Some of the paintings are beautiful but most look like the efforts of a beginner artist to me. I understand that tastes vary so please flip through the book before you make the decision to purchase it. The paintings are impressionistic so if you're looking for realistic, every-detail-captured paintings, this book isn't going to cut it for you. It's not the fact that the paintings are impressionistic that bother me, but that they often come across as being very flat. As I flipped through this book last night, I realized that the artist leans a little too much on the photos he is referencing, which is why those darker areas where so much vitality could lie look almost dead in his renditions. It also seems that sometimes even the artist falls into the common trap of not looking past preconceived notions of color by almost always painting a tree or rock brown, despite whether it actually is or not.
I'm personally not a plein air artist (painting from life rather than photos) and I rely quite heavily on photos in my artwork, but I do believe that to be a successful artist you must know how to fill in the weak spots presented by photos, otherwise your growth as an artist will be limited. For the beginning artist this book will certainly be a helpful foundation, but if you're looking for a little more information I recommend books by Kevin Macpherson, especially "Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light & Color." When I was just beginning to paint and had hit a rut in my artistic growth, the suggestions and examples from that book gave me a whole new understanding of where to go and how to achieve it.
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