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| Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light & Color | 
 enlarge | Author: Kevin D. Macpherson
Publisher: North Light Books
Category: Book
List Price: $28.99
Buy New: $8.96
You Save: $20.03 (69%)
Buy New/Used from $8.96
Avg. Customer Rating:  (31 reviews)
Sales Rank: 414982
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 143
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 11.3 x 9 x 0.8
ISBN: 0891346872
Dewey Decimal Number: 751.45
EAN: 9780891346876
ASIN: 0891346872
Publication Date: March 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light & Color January 28, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Good reference book; should be in all artists library.
Excellent Advice and Technique January 12, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I used to use a pallete of 10 colors but took the author's advice and tried using 3 plus white. Within one day I learned I can mix most colors. The important thing is the pure simplicity and fantastic range of colorful grays you'll generate while mixing. Try it. Later, he says to add a green and gradually others.
His advice on simplifying shapes is wise. The eye averages images. Your intellect wants to paint detail everywhere but that's not what the eye actually sees. To create realistic scenes it's necessary to see color correctly and avoid the urge to sketch with paint. Viewed closely, great paintings often show blotches of color and heavy brush strokes but viewed as a whole it all works together and conveys harmony and an emotional pull.
As for materials, I agree with the author's selection of hardboard-like supports. The Mona Lisa is painted on board and I'm not about to criticise DaVinci.
North Light Books publishes many good painting guides and this volume is one of the best.
Great for the Beginner December 4, 2006
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I took an art class at the museum and our teacher had this book, she let us practice using this book. It is time consuming, but worth it! I've never painted using this technique before and I was suprised at how good I did. It's well worth buying and adding to your library!
Understandable and Effective November 9, 2006
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Kevin MacPherson provides an approach to painting that is very understandable and effective. Follow his principles and you'll paint well. It's that simple.
 Great Book, But Not the Best... October 23, 2006
28 out of 32 found this review helpful
Kevin MacPherson vs. Lois Griffel's "Painting the Impressionist Landscape?" I've checked them both out, and have done many of the exercises. I am using Liquitex acrylics, which work for both - although a little more difficult with Griffel's techniques.
MacPherson is certainly more explicit and easy to follow; his teaching gives more technical detail and really aims to help the reader become a better painter. It is geared more towards the beginning/intermediate painter (like myself), and is very encouraging.
There are some fundamental differences between the results that MacPherson and Griffel achieve, and this is what should drive you to purchase one book or the other. One cannot compare the luminosity, brilliance and depth of Griffel's work to MacPherson's. MacPherson's limited palette of 4 colors creates a "unified" look, because the paint applied to the canvas will generally need to be a mix of 2 or 3 of his primary colors. He also extensively employs neutral and earth toned mixtures. The price for this is color saturation - mixtures are always less saturated than single pigments applied straight from the tube. MacPherson's work, while colorful, is rather drab compared to Griffel's because of his limited color gamut, and his more traditional technique of layering lights, darks and shadows.
Griffel, however, teaches the use of saturated color straight from the tube, wherever possible. This forces the painter to make discrete choices in the beginning, rather than try to mix a continuum of color, and helps put the focus on seeing, recognizing and choosing colors. The other technique Griffel uses extensively is scrumbling, or the juxtaposition of two pure colors against each other. This is a key technique employed by impressionist painters, and it is also the reason why Griffel's paintings are so much more vibrant. I did find Griffel's palette huge, so I created my own, which provides very high saturation, either alone or when mixing two adjacent colors:
Hansa yellow lt
Cad yellow med
Cad orange
Cad red lt
Acra magenta
Dioxazine purple
Ultramarine blue (RS)
Phthalo blue (GS)
Phthalo green (BS)
Permanent green lt
I found Griffel's book much more enjoyable and enlightening, because I liked the wonderful effects I was getting following her simple exercises. I am learning a ton about color choices, value and seeing color. She gives lots of detail with respect to her thought process and how she chooses each and every color. This you will not find in any other book, including Susan Sarback's "Capturing Radiant Colors in Oils," which is based on the same techniques. Painting is reduced to what it is - just putting down one spot of color next to another.
If you like MacPherson's work and prefer a technically detailed, more traditional painting approach, get his book, it is really a great book on how to paint. If you like Griffel's paintings, perhaps already have some painting experience, and are willing to open your mind and experiment, go with her, you won't regret it!
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