Artist's Photo Reference: Landscapes [Hardcover]

Gary Greene (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2000

High quality color photographs of landscape elements including rural, mountain, forest and desert elements including a variety of details will provide a definitive source for a "wild" or pastoral touch to any artist's paintings. Green presents the highest quality photographs of the most popular types of landscapes, such as tropical beaches, waterfalls, moonlit clouds and mountains, as well as a few unusual ones that offer a unique painting interest. Paintings, made from photographs featured in the book, with comments from the artist, are featured throughout to provide a reference. Seven step-by-step demonstrations by a variety of artists illustrate how to use the reference photos to create gorgeous landscapes in a wide range of mediums.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Many artists take reference photos before setting brush to canvas. The "Artist's Photo Reference" series seeks to provide a broad archive of photos for those times when an artist wants to paint the sea while in the Midwest or paint a bluebird in the dead of winter. Greene has added two invaluable volumes to the series, which already boasts his Flowers (1998) and Bart Rulon's Birds (LJ 3/15/99). Each contains hundreds of high-quality photos (Buildings and Barns, for example, covers young and old barns, houses from Tudor through the late 20th century, storefronts, mills, schools, railroad and gas stations, churches, and waterfront buildings) and between four and six demonstrations in a variety of media. These highly recommended books are examples of a great idea, beautifully executed.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Gary Greene is a successful colored pencil artist, as well as a professional graphic artist and photographer. He is the author of North Light's Creating Textures in Colored Pencil and Capturing Flowers in Colored Pencil, as well as the first book in this series. Photo Reference: Flowers.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: North Light Books (November 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891349987
• ISBN-13: 978-0891349983
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #811,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Need art reference material?, October 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Artist's Photo Reference: Landscapes (Hardcover)

As a painter you're always looking for fresh reference materials, often frustrated by copyright restrictions.
Gary Greene, the author of Artist's Photo Reference Landscapes, encourages the reader to copy the photographs to use as is or combine them into fresh compositions. What a novel idea!
The photographs are superb and well conceived making for thousands of new compositions for your art reference library.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More is Less, July 7, 2003

By 

Mary Lemma (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Artist's Photo Reference: Landscapes (Paperback)

A photo reference should of course contain plenty of photos, but here there may be too many, or maybe it's that they're crammed four or five to a page. I've worked with small print photos of my own as a reference and it's no bother ( I can enlarge them if I need to), but when a smallish image is one of a group on that same page, well...it's just too crowded.
Perhaps less would be more.

Maybe it's my merely-intermediate stature, but I'd rather a larger format, such as a volume called "America" (or "American Landscapes") that I found at the library, with one or two great photos to a page.

"Artist's Photo Reference: Landscapes" is helpfully organized into categories and sections within those categories, and offers a few demos. That's a good thing.

I may not unload this book, but I'll more likely hit the library for some general photography books.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Reference Book For The Studio, February 16, 2002

By 

Gail Willis "music maven" (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Artist's Photo Reference: Landscapes (Hardcover)

This is a really good reference book for landscapes. I use it often when I need a good outdoor scene for a painting. I really like to use the landscapes that depict sunset/sunrise. This book has most definitely been the most used art reference book in my studio.

My only complaint is that I wish he had incorporated scenes that invoke Alaska. Other than the absence of glaciers this is a pretty good book. I hope if there is a second edition that he remembers to include glaciers and frozen ponds. Afterall, the Alaskan landscape is a part of America too.