"[This book is] unique and exciting...it works beautifully."--Library Journal
Hone your skills on depicting water, dramatic landscapes, the nude, still lifes, and nature--all based on celebrated works by Cotman, Constable, Monet, Bonnard, Gainsborough, Fantin-Latour, and Homer. With the masters as inspiration, even budding painters can create evocative watercolors. Each of the seven exciting lessons here focuses on a single masterpiece by a great artist, providing background information, discussions of the work as a whole, and a detailed evaluation of stylistic intricacies. An in-depth examination of the most vital watercolor techniques-including backruns, blending, body color, brushwork, dry brush, glazing, and impressing-reveals all the possibilities of this luscious medium.
Harrison has created two unique and exciting books based on the methods of the masters. It may seem odd at first to study an oil by Courbet to learn pastel techniques or an oil by Gainsborough to learn the art of watercolor portraiture, but it works beautifully. The core of each book focuses in detail on a series of master paintings, each chosen to illustrate a specific subject area, such as portraiture, still life, or landscape. Each is followed by a tutorial in which a contemporary artist demonstrates not how to copy the original but how to use specific techniques to create a new work. Thus, the point of analyzing Winslow Homer's "The Red Canoe" is to learn how to paint figures in a landscape in one's own work. These two books should be added to most collections to complement Ettore Maiotti's earlier fine volume, The Oil Painting Handbook: Learning from the Masters, now out of print.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.