Flower Painting

Describes the history of flower painting in watercolors, and suggests equipment, painting techniques, and methods of observation and composition for creating colorful paintings

Each of these three books deals with the complex challenge of painting flowers, but the similarity ends there. An instructor at the Scottsdale Artist's School, Arnett, using the medium of oil, combines flowers with other elements of classical still life painting. The results are truly sumptuous. In seven lessons she demonstrates the soft petals and strong colors of magnolias, African tulips, and cascading roses in combination with lush peaches, pears, and figs. Here's a fine book for advanced students. By contrast, Beck uses acrylics and a purely decorative approach. The book is misnamed, for the flowers aren't rendered realistically but in the formal style decorative artists use for ornamenting plates and baskets. This is a fun and approachable volume for beginning and mid-level craft painters. Riley, teaching a freestyle method in watercolors, offers the finest of the three books. In an extremely well-laid-out manual, Riley provides a kind of master class that teaches as much about how to observe flowers as how to paint them. He covers past masters of the genre, as well as non-Western perspectives. The technical sections on lighting flowers, resist painting, and two-color brushwork are beautifully done. If only one of these three excellent volumes can be purchased, make it Riley's.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.