Seascape Artist

ISBN-13: 978-1-58180-964-0
ISBN-10 1-58180-964-6

Mermaids and Mermen are a staple of seascape fantasy art …. put in a few fantastical underwater reef castles or sunken ships, a school of fish or so surrounding single or flocks of mer-people and you have an exciting captivating flowing underwater painting. Or perhaps you prefer mermaids sunning themselves on rocks at the surface, singing and luring sailors to a watery grave [showing sunken ships below the surface would be a nice gruesome touch].

I have not read the entire book word for word … yet … As the title states, it covers Angles, Fairies and Mermaid “worlds”. The drawn/painted angel, faery and mermaid is a major part of those worlds and the artist is a marvelous painter - I am enjoying her artwork immensely and what I have read so far is very thoughtful and useful in improving painting skills or discovering new talents and skills.

There is a lot of material presented in this book and it is presented very well. If you are wanting to paint seascapes that include mermaids and are having trouble resolving some unique to underwater issues (i.e., making flowing dry hair appear “natural” yet convincing for a wet environment instead of painting wet hair in underwater seascapes) … I recommend you read the techniques presented in the mermaid section. The techniques can also be adapted to oil, acrylic, pastel, digital, etc painting mediums easily too.

ISBN 978-1-84448-020-3

I feel this book is probably going to be more useful for artists who are just learning about painting the ocean or sea … one tip though that sounds good is his “brush rolling” if you can master it - I doubt it will help me since I have no depth perception and with a brush & canvas, I am either too heavy-handed or not even on the canvas at all due to my vision issues .. I understand the reasoning why to use it and how to use it … I just would not be able to master it consistently because I do not physically see like most people. If you have problems with tonal values, he goes in depth about them and he does under-paintings for those who like to paint tonal underlays before adding color … color for many people keeps them from identifying tonal placements.

This book is okay - no glaring wrongnesses that I noticed though I am not overly impressed with most of his rocks - I am very picky about how rocks look in seascapes - I paint awful rocks most of the time which is probably one reason I am picky about other people’s rocks in a seascape painting.

BUT … in a choice between recommending this book and one by E. John Robinson - I would recommend that you buy an E. John Robinson Paint the Sea book … in my opinion, E. John Robinson is a better seascape artist, better writer and knows and understands the sea better in order to help us understand it and paint it well. You can read my review of his books here.

On a scale of 1 - 10: Sea & Sky in Oils by Roy Lang gets a 4 and E. John Robinson’s Paint the Sea series gets a 10 from me. Your opinions may be very different from mine - his style may be just what you are looking for and this book may be the breakthrough in seascape painting that you have been searching for, so, as always … look at this book and make up your own mind if it will help you or not.

Sunset Harbor by Barbara Burns

Sunset Harbor by Barbara Burns — View Larger

Tags: Barbara Burns, Sunset Harbor, Imagekind, seascape, harbor, sunset