May 28 2007
Visual Aids to Learning - Books & Movies on Video, DVD
Discovering how to make our seascapes even better than they already are can be a lot of fun as well as a lot of work. I like books and videos - I do not have much time right now for workshops. Maybe later in the year when I have vacation time earned. I also like to see more than just one artist’s approach to the subject. I already have my own style of seascape painting so I am looking for ways to improve, learn new ways and to just enjoy other people’s art while getting inspired for surroundings I may never see in person. I practise strokes, ways of creating, ways of seeing it differently than I have been … usually these days on the computer so I can just delete the file when done instead of throwing out an entire watercolor pad of practice sketches.
Last winter, I gave all my painting videos to my daughter’s mother-in-law so she can use them to teach herself how to paint - I am thrilled I was the inspiration for her to paint palm trees in her kitchen - she just did not believe in herself … she surprised herself, her husband and her son with those palm trees she created in her kitchen! All because I gave her a palm tree painting for Christmas the year before that.
In my library, I pulled out the following that I use specifically for seascape / marine research.
1. Books by E. John Robinson
a) Paint the Sea and Shoreline in Watercolors Using Special Effects
b) Paint the Sea in Oils Using Special Effects
I love the energy in his paintings and he gives lots of examples and great advice on different aspects of painting water. As we all know, water moves … and it takes on the colors surrounding it … during sunset especially … you can easily have red as blood, orange as a tangerine, green as newly mown grass and lilac as flowers in a vase waves in the sea or ripples in a lake … all at the same time. You can paint it true to life … but you have to do it very carefully to have it be a harmonious blend instead of a chaotic screaming mess. [Note - unless that is exactly what you want]
He has DVD’s or VHS tapes and a new book about painting water that I haven’t seen yet - maybe that is because I haven’t been to the bookstore lately .. LOL I do not have any of his movies … I will consider getting one - I would like to learn how to do rocks better and the big wave at all especially … being visually impaired makes it difficult for me to comprehend what the rest of the world sees sometimes and what I have to do to simulate something on flat surfaces that I never see at all.
2. North Light Books - North Light Book Club
Available for me locally at Texas Art Supply by driving across town - for me, that is a week-end jaunt - they have so many books at their Montrose Store - it is fun to just go to browse - it is a refreshing change of pace in life for me to go hang out and browse at their Voss location - I wish they had a coffee shop in the store so artists could congregate there to meet and talk to each other about art as we pass through the store buying supplies and finding new art materials to try out for our painting processes.
a) Painting Ships, Shores and the Sea by Rachel Rubin Wolf
b) Painting the Effects of Weather by Patricia Seligman
The Painting Ships, Shores and the Sea book features many artists with awesome sketches, advice and maritime information. Considering the fact that I am not a sailor (yet anyway), I have no clue how the direction of the wind affects a sailboat for example. I can tell you in a painting if I see one that looks … wrong … though I couldn’t say why it looks wrong until reading this book. I learned a lot and still have a lot to learn from this book about painting sailboats among many other subjects.
One of my favorite paintings of mine was when I was playing with the ideas discussed in the section of Evening Skies Add Color to Harbor Scenes by Leonard Mizerek. I do not paint harbor scenes per se but I decided that a silhouette version might work for me - painting architecture or boats in detail is not my specialty at all - I am more of a building or ship suggestor so this turned into a fun painting with a somber overtone, for me anyway.
This is the description I gave it in my gallery at ImageKind: “Peaceful stark ship masts against the sunset sky evokes a warm inviting feeling of homecoming at first glance but lonely empty graveyard at second look.”
Sunset Harbor by Barbara Burns
Most sunsets I’ve seen are not done in shades of yellow, umber, ochre and browns alone …. but those are what appealed to me when I was painting this and it turned out splendidly in my opinion. I tend to like bright colors and use different color themes depending on my “mood of the moment” when painting. Digital painting gives me a lot of freedom to explore bright colors and a variety of color themes without wasting canvas or pads of watercolor paper.
No one seeing my painting next to Leonard Mizerek’s paintings in this book would find them at all related, let alone mine inspired by reading what he had to say about the subject (and seeing pictures of his lovely paintings) - his two sunset harbor paintings shown in the book are full complete harbor / ship scenes with lots of tiny details including ship’s rigging for the furled sails, windows and ledges on the builidings and colors in the generally expected sunset harmony colors.
The Painting the Effects of Weather book features how to about painting weather … weather affects every painting subject in the world with every possible painting medium obviously. It has helped me understand how weather and atmosphere affect the world around me and how many artist’s handle painting it into their moody nature paintings - I believe all nature paintings are mood paintings :D.
I have lots of these … in a plethora of subjects … the ocean, flowers, landscapes, oil painting, watercolor painting, several I like better than others but I find all of them to be helpful to me learning something I didn’t know before I read it whether I practice it or not … rofl
Until today, I had no idea they had their own website selling their products themselves - oh my - I do enjoy their books - they are quick helps about things - I really like the one I have about ships - I think it is probably out of print - I got mine at a flea market - How to Paint Boats by Ralph S. Coventry - very informative and helpful. I referred to it for bouy ideas when I did my painting, Haunting Melody Buoy, though to see my painting next to the lovely charcoal (?) drawings of various bouys in the book, you probably would not see much resemblance from mine to theirs. I painted mine specifically as a design for a magnet for a Christmas gift. I ordered one for myself too because I wanted to see it and it was gorgeous … it would be splendid as a Fine Art Print (wall art if you will since that term seems to be current / popular right now) in any size for anyone who likes marine art.
The very first painting I ever sold was based on my reading a Walter Foster book - I painted a ship in fog … sudddenly thanks to marine art, I was a professional artist … LOL … to me, a professional artist was someone who sold their paintings while alive and not waiting until they were dead to be discovered.
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