Painting Landscapes in Oils

I've had this book for some years and keep coming back to it. The author's discussion of using a grisaille (value study) to start your painting is very well done with several examples. I think this is worth the price of the book alone. Many beginners have difficulty getting their values right outdoors and the grisaille technique can get you to get those dark values into your paintings.

My wife picked this up for a little brushing up (heh-heh) prior to taking a landscape painting course at the local art museum. She was favorably impressed overall, as this book contains a lot of examples of different kinds of landscapes, as well as the painting techniques necessary to produce such landscapes. She says the one weakness of the book is that there isn't very much step-by-step instruction, which would have helped her more. Still, with the many nice pictures, ample explanation, and simple execution of this book, she is happy she got it and finds it useful for referring back to when she's faced with issues in her own paintings. She recommends this book to fellow beginning artists.

This is an average book on landscapes, maybe a little more depending on your needs. Instead of your typical step-by-step instruction on landscapes, most of the book is a showcase of Mary Anna's paintings accompanied with paragraphs of text. Many of the paintings shown are completed and the rest are before and after images related to specific ideas that she discusses. Throughout the book she shares observations she's made, some in regard to specific paintings and scenes, some in general. Peppered in these are some good tips about composition and painting specific effects. It's a surprisingly pleasurable read. There are a couple of step-by-step illustations of her painting process... but it's not a tutorial. If you're looking for more of a beginners instruction, or you want to see detailed progression of a few paintings, this shouldn't be your first choice. If you're searching for more of a conceptual guide and some nice paintings to look at in reference to the ideas, then it's much better. Either way, it's a good buy used. 144 Pages, numerous images, entirely in color.