Draw painting as demand

A wonderful book!!

This book is beautifully written, organized and printed. It is a pleasure to read even if you aren’t a painter but merely someone wanting to know more about landscape painting. Mitch Albala has reduced the art of landscape composition and painting to their very essence. The writing is pristine, the illustrations and instruction are very clear. The large number of contemporary landscape painters used throughout the book as illustration introduce the reader to many contemporary landscape painters. I highly recommend this book.

This book was written by someone who obviously has been teaching oil painting for some time. The writing style, the organization and the informational content is exceptional. I am a novice oil painter who has struggled with various aspects of this medium–especially in a plein air setting using the direct alla prima method. Most of my oil painting education has come from reading many, many books–yet there remained signficant impediments to my learning curve. Well, finally some hope for progress as this book addressed my particular issues like no other. It was almost as if Alabala watched me struggle in one of his classes and then wrote sections of the book just for me. Even some of his sidebar helpful tips–so seemingly simple at first glance–have helped me immensely. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to become a better oil painter in particular and a better artist in general.

Jerry Yarnell is a great landscape, and other , artist. I prefer his style over Bob Ross, as to more natural appearing (both are beneficial resources). He has a series of art books out, with somewhat repetitious introductory material so each book can stand on its own. His style is more realistic, and more detailed, than Ross’, so a little harder to master. But his books break down the basics. “Secrets of Acrylic …” is really focused on the basics for landscape forms, mountains, grasses, seas, clouds, rocks, etc.. Though focused on acrylics, the techniques are very similar for oils (I’ve used his techniques for both with great results). I recommend this, and all his books on art techniques, of which I have a few.

Wonderful book with plenty of great examples.