Self teaching - great art book resources 1

Gorgeous August day – warm sun, just a bit breezy. But as I pushed my bike out to go to work yesterday, there was a hint, a subtle something, maybe a scent or a quality in the air that told me Autumn is round the corner – my favourite time of year.

The gardens are still looking colourful, the sky is mostly blue (when it’s not pissing down with monsoon type rain), the days not overly hot and evenings still perfect for taking a walk after being cooped up inside all day with a paint brush, although depending on the medium I can take some stuff to the park and work outside.

But how fast this year has gone. I keep getting caught out and have to look twice to check it’s really that date! But with a little over three weeks to the art fair, I have most of my stuff sorted. A few pieces to add to the painting side and the business cards still to do, but the matts and frames are now ordered. Another chunk of change to add to the cost of doing this. This art show thing is expensive.

Pausing this week to give a bit of a shout out to wonderful authors who write books full of valuable information for artists like me, who never went to art school. I don’t actually know how much theoretical or practical stuff gets taught in art courses but in school, we did a lesson plus one piece of homework on perspective and once we were shown how to stretch paper. That’s it. This was A level equivalent too. Just practice for the exam. Minimal actual learning.

I was told my drawing skills were great but my composition was useless. Of course, teaching us what good composition actually was…wasn’t part of the class but hey, at least I knew I was crap at it. Oh, and drawing gymnasts and dancers was considered...unsuitable.

So I Googled 'good compostion'. Well, StartPage actually. What’s the best book? The one repeatedly praised was The Simple Secret to Better Painting by Greg Albert. I bought it and it's just brilliant. Full of little sketched examples, simple compositions repeated with varied colours and placements to show what works or doesn’t and why, and wonderful finished paintings so you can see how it should be done. Best of all, it has chapters on still life, landscapes and figure/portrait work. So much composition advice you read only looks at the first two. This one is going to get a lot of re-reading.

Another cracking good one I have is Create Perfect Paintings by Nancy Reyner. It too shows altered paintings (yay digital wizardry) to show how changing textures, perspective etc. can make or break a composition and has quite a bit of abstract work in it (which is good cos that’s also something I want to do). It also has a really helpful chapter on how to know your painting is finished and a chapter on critiquing – what questions you can ask yourself if you think something’s not right.

I love these books. Both are extremely easy to read through and are visually luscious. If you’re going to buy an art book, it will work best for you if you ‘get’ the style of art depicted. The colours and volume of images in both of these make you want to keep going back to them for help and inspiration.

I have a little treasure trove of art instruction books, some of which I’ll also review in the future. Worth every penny and an efficient way to benefit from others' experience and knowledge, on topic areas that are directly applicable to the type of art you want to do.