Landscape: A Comprehensive Guide to Drawing and Painting Nature [Hardcover]

Richard Mcdaniel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1997

Presenting diverse ways to depict nature, this book offers expert guidance for drawing with pencil, pen, ink, and charcoal, and painting with oils and pastels. A comprehensive historical review of the genre - from early European and American schools through impressionism and expressionism to contemporary landscape art - provides artists with a solid understanding of this type of art. Tips and techniques are provided for working outdoors, capturing nature's textures, and rendering the most important landscape components like light and shadow, changing skies and clouds, and rushing and tranquil water. Clear, illustrated, step-by-step demonstrations are included throughout.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill; First edition (August 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823025926
• ISBN-13: 978-0823025923
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,331,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, insightful, easy to follow, informative, October 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Landscape: A Comprehensive Guide to Drawing and Painting Nature (Hardcover)

There is no doubt about it. This book is definetely comprehensive. It is also extremely well-organized and quite readible. I like the fact that the book can be used equally by a complete beginner or by an advanced painter. There is material to help a novice get started, yet the author (McDaniel) provides insightful guidance that will even help the experts.

The demonstrations of different techniques are direct and easily understood, with clear examples and superb artwork. It is enlightening to follow the process of creating paintings and seeing the artist use such a wide variety of materials and techniques.

The sections on composition and color are particularly informative, as is the discussion and helpful hints for painting on location and in the studio. He showed me a new way to see all the variety of shapes and color to be found in nature. The book is fun to read and has an easy, conversational style of writing that is relaxed, funnny and quite informative.

If you are interested in fine art in general, or landscape painting in particular, this book should be on your shelf.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational and full of information, October 29, 2006

By 

N. Hutchins (Sebastopol, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Landscape (Paperback)

I have painted "plein air" for a number of years, first in pastel and now moving into oils. I was very glad to find this book of Richard McDaniels, which I have been voraciously reading over the last couple of weeks. His palette and brush strokes really speak to me, and his colors SING with clarity and beauty. I appreciate the many samples of his work included in the book, which inspire me to delve deeper into my own compositions and experiment with varying colors. He writes with a knowledgeable, carefully-thought-out and well-articulated manner, and is often surprisingly humorous in his prose. I have learned much by coming across this book - for example, being reminded how to approach the laying out of values in beginning a painting. This is essential, and something many people do not grasp! His many samples showing the various stages of a painting are informational and helpful.
I have read the important "Carlsen's Guide to Landscape Painting" and Richard's book is a modern version of a classic- destined to become the Bible of Landscape Painting. We pay a modest sum for what we would've paid several hundred dollars for in a workshop, just by purchasing and reading this book. It is a must for any painter's personal library. Painting is a lifelong learning , and this book is many breaths of fresh air to help us along our way.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars All things to all people, July 10, 2006

By 

GermArt "free spirit" (Longview WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Landscape (Paperback)

The best things about this book are the cover and frontis images. It covers everything about the rules of making art, but doesn't really inspire. Nothing in the text sings "Nature" to me, instead I felt that it had all been said before.