Customer Reviews

Oil Painting Techniques: Learn How to Master Oil Painting Working Techniques to Create your Own Successful Paintings (Artist's Painting Library)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Is it possible to give negative stars?

I'm so embarassed about buying this book.

My stupidity is the only explanation...

It's not about techniques. It wasn't even written by the artists. It's a running commentary on paintings. The average number of "intermediate" steps per painting is about 4-5. Each "step" is actually a different painting started from scratch, so there's no way to compare what changed between steps cause it all did. So much was skipped between enormous amounts of work they felt guilty and tried to make up for it with such sage advice as "Mr. Jones prefers to thin his paint with 1/3 damar, 1/3 turpentine, 1/3 linseed oil". Or "when sketching during sharp-focused-realism be precise". Or "shadows made it look 3 dimensional" I'm exaggerating but I think you get the point.

I was rather disappointed with this book and do not recommend it. The only techniques in this book was useless bits of information like a simple color chart, how to hold a paintbrush, and what you should have in your paint-box. There were no techniques on how to oil paint. The book consisted of paintings by different artists being critiqued. The book should be titled something like, "Let's try to talk up eleven artists, ten if we subtract the writer". With the exception of a few pieces by Ken Davies, the art work in the book is very amateur looking itself. I guess that is why they put them into a book and tried to talk them up. It really deserves minus 2 stars.

I have not painted in over 30 years, and hoped that this would bring me up to speed. It didn't. Probably the least useful book on painting on my bookshelf. I'm not sure what this book is supposed to do for the reader. It didn't help me in the least.

This is a book I borrowed from the public library originally, but liked so much that I bought a copy.
Interesting, though, that many of the reviews here on Amazon really pan it - and there is truth in what they say. Many of the demos aren't demos at all, and the step by steps are more 'leap by leap' in many cases and non-existent in others - and compared to many a 'how to paint book' it is brief at somewhere around 140 pages. I have to admit that at first I thought exactly the same but hung onto it (from the library) for the colour swatches. Later, realising how much I liked it, I bought my own copy.
When learning to paint one book is not always sufficient (I learnt mostly from books, but quite a few different ones), and I would not recommend this as the sole 'how to paint book' for a beginner. But with sea by E. John Robinson (how to paint a breaker etc.), a nice demo by Paul Strisk, the inevitable George Cherepov, Jane Corsellis (not really a 'how to' at all but nice ideas), and a few pages of colour swatches near the beginning, I really love it.
Even though I am now a 'reasonably competent painter' I still occasionally use it for advice and 'dip into it' frequently for pleasure and ideas.

I'm pretty much a complete novice in any form of art, so this book was quite helpful to me. There are several parts I found useful-- how to hold and handle the brush to achieve different effects, comparisons of student paintings to similar professional works, separating 'value' from 'intensity,' etc. I can imagine this book being a waste of time for people who've been in relatively good art classes or who've done enough painting to have learned all of this already, but if you consider yourself an amateur, this is a good place to start.

Although may not be properly named as "Oil painting techniques", it is actually quite useful art book. I specifically like the section of artist Foster Caddell's work. Through his landscape oil paintings, Foster clearly explains to readers how a professional work better than an amateur's painting by comparing both works side by side. He also discusses color contrast and light effects in oil painting which are more important for creating a good art piece in those easy-to-read sections. In addition, this book also lists some other good artists (i.e.Jane Corsellis and Charles Pfahl). To be fair, this book deserve better rating than one star and better value than $1.50 for an used one. For anyone looking for technique instruction of brush work and color mixing, go for another book.

The book is not too complicated and provides some very useful oil painting techniques for a beginner like myself.

I bought this book used from Kristopher Chambers and it was immaculate. Best deal I've gotten in a long while! Now I just need to apply all the techniques to my painting. Barbara Bouchet,Happy Shopper

I don't have much to go on, but I quickly browsed this book in an art store and found it quite good as far as simplicity and "what the beginning artist should have." I would recommend it to the beginner without reservation.