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78 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better than Lois Griffel!, June 9, 2005
This review is from: Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color (Paperback)
I love this book! It is full of good solid practical suggestions that result in a better painting. His color-isolator - a piece of cardboard painted with blocks of white, gray, and black, with a peep hole through each color block - is a fantastic idea. I also liked his use of the wooden pear to show shadows, planes, and color. He placed a yellow-green wooden pear on different colored backgrounds, and took photos. The photos are the key - one can SEE how a shadow actually can can take on different hues depending on its surroundings. No guessing. Lois Griffel has a similar study in her book, using paintings of a cube, but there is no way to see how in the world she came up with using some of the colors that she did because it's all just shown through paintings.
MacPherson also gives good practical advice on laying out the foundation for the art work - setting up the underlying "bones" of the painting.
MacPherson advocates using a very limited palette, and mixing those colors to get the colors you need. The idea is to tie everything together visually. I tried using a very basic palette, and am very pleased with the results. I use acrylics, but the same general principles apply. It forces one to learn to mix colors, and also unifies the painting. MacPherson is also correct when he urges the reader to try to paint an hour every day - practice makes perfect. If one REALLY wants to, one can find the time.... Maybe outside in the daylight is not always possible, but the daily routine and discipline is well worth the effort.
Lois Griffel's book is full of beautiful paintings, and tons of narrative, but little basic practical advice. (I also got irritated with Lois' claim that she paints what she SEES, because her paintings are loaded with colors that are not in the original photos. Like gobs and gobs and gobs of rose and magenta everywhere. She does create beautiful paintings, but please - don't tell me that they are a reflection of reality...) Lois' message is that she is much more clever than the rest of us, and maybe she is. Kevin MacPherson's message is YES, you can DO this! I like his message much better.
If you can only buy one book,go for Kevin MacPHERSON!
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52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just like his workshops--and with one cautionary bit of advice., March 18, 2006
This review is from: Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color (Paperback)
This book is just like Kevin's workshops. I took one with him years ago--when I should have bought his paintings--and he helped me immeasurably. One of the quickest ways you can learn to paint outdoors is to buy this book (while you still can) and then take a MacPherson workshop somewhere.
One slight caveat: his pallette is for me, a bit TOO limited. He used to say that with the three primaries, you can mix any color you wish.
Well, yes and no. For instance you can mix and mix and come up with something approximating Burnt Sienna but your mixture, I assure you, will be a subpar rendition of the color. Sienna is mined in the Sienna region of Italy and the actual Sienna pigment itself can not be duplicated, period. The mixture you'll get by trying to slop something together will mix like mud with the rest of your colors while the actual Burnt Sienna in a tube works far, far better.
Kevin cites Arthur Stern's book (out of print and expensive now) wherein Mr. Stern uses a warm and cool version of each primary.
What you could try is to add a red into Kevin's basic pallette. Add a Cadmium Red Light and a Burnt Sienna (Burnt Sienna mixes with almost everything an makes great greys) and you'll find that you have a bit more flexibility when mixing and that you can "hit" your mixtures better while still keeping the advantages of Kevin's limited pallette.
So Google the guy and find out where he's giving a workshop and get in line. You won't regret it. If you can't take a workshop, the book is the next best thing.
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53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my favorite painting books and the best for plein air, June 27, 2004
This review is from: Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color (Paperback)
I've read a lot of painting books and this is one of my favorites. I've read it front to back several times, and I've read through different chapters numerous times. He uses a very limited palette: cad yellow light, alizarin crimson, ultramarine, and phthalo green. I've been using a limited palette since I read his book, although I often alter the colors a bit. People say the palette is too limited but once you master it you can easily change the colors and add others as required. I found they're seldom required. He has a challenge to do 100 starts which is great. I'm current doing this with a group of artists at WetCanvas (search Google). He also has another challenge to paint a 6x8 plein air in one hour every day for 3 months. I'm quite confident that after painting 100 starts and 90 paintings I'll be a much better plein air painter. I also like his suggestion of using a black marker to make a b&w sketch before painting. This helps to see the light/shadow patterns. Overall this book is great. Although it's for oil, his technique will work for any opaque medium. MacPherson also gives workshops and from what I've heard they're very good. The material in the book is what he presents in the workshop!
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