Top 6 Oil Paint Books
Oil painting is a fantastic way to express yourself creatively. With so many oil painting books out there, it can be hard to know which ones are worth your time and money. Fortunately, we’ve done the research for you and rounded up some of the most popular and acclaimed oil paint books available today.
The Oil Painter's Color Handbook:
A Contemporary Guide to Color Mixing, Pigments, Palettes, and Harmony
From Todd M. Casey, acclaimed artist and expert teacher, The Oil Painter’s Color Handbook: A Contemporary Guide to color Mixing, Pigments, Palettes, and Harmony provides everything the oil painter needs to understand all aspects of color and empowers the reader to paint with confidence. As Casey notes, every artist and artist-in-training must learn how to “master the main concepts of picture-making: drawing, light, shadow, value, form, composition, and color.”
A follow-up to the bestselling The Art of Still Life: A Contemporary Guide to Classical Techniques, Composition, and Painting in Oil (Monacelli, 2020), The Oil Painter’s Color Handbook begins with an in-depth look at the use of color throughout art history. Casey then breaks down the process of understanding color into easily digestible lessons―each clearly explained and richly illustrated with both historic and contemporary paintings―so that the reader can learn progressively and layer more complex ideas as each skill is achieved.
Through clear instruction, step-by-step demonstrations, and challenging exercises, readers will learn to apply these techniques and concepts to their own painting. Once educated with this fundamental knowledge, as an artist, one can begin to find the balance between the science and emotional intuition in creating art. This informative and visually dynamic book will be accessible and appealing to artists, art students, and art instructors, to serious amateurs and hobbyists.
The Beginner’s Guide to Oil Painting:
Simple Still Life Projects to Help You Master the Basics
Craig Stephens has a simple motto for painting: With a brush, some paints and a willingness to learn, anyone can do it. With that mindset, Craig takes his most essential lessons, boils them down to their basics and teaches you everything you need to know to start oil painting, without any fuss or highbrow. Thanks to his experience teaching painting to high school students for over two decades, Craig is an expert at helping those with no experience pick up a brush and make beautiful art they are proud of. With his direction, you’ll create dynamic, vivid paintings and learn to capture your world in ways you never thought possible.
Each project in this book is designed to highlight the important elements of using oil paints, helping you to practice new skills and get comfortable with the medium. And thanks to Craig’s helpful step-by-step directions that pair a picture with each stroke, you’ll get great results. Hone your color-mixing eye as you blend the vibrant greens and subtle yellows in the Freshly Cut Avocado piece. Practice painting unique textures, like the small craters in the Simplified Strawberry or the glossy skin on the Smooth and Shiny Plum. Learn all the ways to capture natural light, like transparency in a glass of Refreshing Lemon Water or dazzling reflections on a Chrome Coffee Creamer. Oil painting is a timeless art form, and with Craig as your teacher, you’ll create 22 beautiful pieces for your walls and learn all the foundational skills you need to enjoy this hobby for years to come.
The Oil Painting Course You've Always Wanted:
Guided Lessons for Beginners and Experienced Artists
In The Oil Painting Course You've Always Wanted, author Kathleen Staiger presents crystal clear, step-by-step lessons that build to reinforce learning. Brush control, creating the illusion of three dimensions, foolproof color mixing, still-life painting, landscapes, and portraits--every topic is covered in clear text, diagrams, illustrations, exercises, and demonstrations. Staiger has taught oil painting for more than thirty-five years; many of her students are now exhibiting and selling their paintings. Everyone from beginning hobby painters, to art students, to BFA graduates has questions about oil painting. Here at last are the answers!
Traditional Oil Painting:
Advanced Techniques and Concepts from the Renaissance to the Present
Traditional Oil Painting is a unique and irreplaceable sourcebook for those who want to master the techniques and concepts of advanced oil painting. With step-by-step demonstrations, Virgil Elliott reveals the methods used by Masters from the Flemish school to today to create highly realistic, deeply meaningful art. These lessons are grouped by topic into chapters on: The Importance of Drawing Principles of Visual Reality Color, Techniques of Painting in Oils Oil Painting Materials Portrait, Landscape, and Still-Life Painting, and more. Throughout, Elliott guides the ongoing education and development of your own artist’s voice and aesthetic sensibility. Students of art will appreciate highly detailed explanations of the Masters’ varied methods, made possible by recent scientific advances and by Elliott’s own expertise in oil painting materials and technique.
The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting:
Techniques for Rendering Sky, Terrain, Trees, and Water
A landscape painting guide for oil painters that breaks landscapes down into component elements from nature, and showcases tools and techniques used by classic and modern oil painters for bringing these scenes to life.
Landscape painting is one of the most popular subjects for painters working in the medium of oils--from classic masters to contemporary artists. In The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, established Watson-Guptill author and noted instructor/painter Suzanne Brooker presents the fundamentals necessary for mastering landscape oil painting, breaking landscapes down into component parts: sky, terrain, trees, and water. Each featured element builds off the previous, with additional lessons on the latest brushes, paints, and other tools used by artists. Key methods like observation, rendering, and color mixing are supported by demonstration paintings and samples from a variety of the best landscape oil painters of all time. With The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, oil painters looking to break into landscape painting or enhance their work will find all the necessary ingredients for success.
Oils:
Techniques and Tutorials for the Complete Beginner
Learn how use oil paints with this clear and simple guide. Accomplished artist and teacher Norman Long explains all the basics and shows you how to master this versatile, vibrant medium so you can produce beautiful paintings full of life and color.
Oils has a handy front section covering all the practical stuff, from choosing the right materials to essential techniques.
- 10 step-by-step tutorials each broken down into key stages
- range of subject matter from still life to landscapes to figures
- clear step-by-step photography and instructions
- includes special features on painting people, painting outdoors and composition
- tips and practical advice to help make the most of your paints
We hope you found this post helpful as you make your choices about the great oil paint books, happy painting!
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