Customer Reviews

Painting the Head in Oil

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Whether a beginner or experienced oil painter, this is a must-have book for your art techniques library. Sanden begins with general oil painting information about materials and equipment. He reviews his color palette in detail, discussing warms and cools, earth colors, and mixing your own flesh tints. He covers the basics of drawing the head and then talks about value, light, halftone, and shadow. Sanden's in depth color review includes hue, value and intensity, color mixing recipes and charts which you can make on canvas paper to keep for future reference. He shows you how to set up your palette, and gives clear and concise step-by-step painting instructions. After a review of general painting procedures, he paints (with examples) the head, including the mouth, teeth, chin, ears, forehead, hair, eyes, eyeglasses, and nose. Explanations are very clear and easy to follow. Lastly, he tells you how to capture the essence of your sitter. There are several color examples of his work throughout the book, as well as, black and white ones. He also discusses dark flesh tones, sitters attire, and the background. He encourages the painter to reduce the portrait into five parts: the light side of the face, the dark side of the face, the hair, the costume, and the background; to simplify. I use this book with my oil painting classes.

this book gives you step by step instruction and teaches the basics as well as advanced ways to get portraits the way they should be. it includes the artist's palette and pictures of demostrations. he explains the colors of his palette as well as showing you how to make it with a chart for future reference. The darks, shadows , and light, the way in which he uses it to get the true illusion of 3 dimensional picture. i recommend this book to all artist alike.

If you're seeking guidance on painting portraits, Sanden's method, or using his portrait oils this is NOT the book for you. You'll want his newer "Portraits from life in 29 steps."

Unlike the newer book, there are no full portrait demonstrations in this book, only segments on the nose, mouth, etc. and these are in black and white like the majority of instructional illustrations in this book. This book does however list the basic colors and the relative proportions used to create Sanden's Pro Mix set.

90 black and white plus 42 color illustrations. Brief discussions on many aspects of the portrait painting process but very little advice on color or painting itself. In short it's more of a guide for the artist who knows how to paint but can't seem to produce a good portrait than it is for less experienced painters.

A dated book but one offering as much or similar advice to newer books - it would earn 4 stars if it weren't for the lack of color plates in the instructional segments.

This is one of the best, most thorough books on Portrait Painting. I especially benefited from the information on color mixing for the various skin tones, which I have seen in other books, but his is more in-depth. I won't let my book go!

I've only started to go through the book, but I can see already that it will prove helpful. It is a nice companion to his 29-steps book on portrait painting. Many of the images in this book are in black and white. I find this doesn't bother me at all because it helps to see the tonality.

I'm not sure why this book is still out of print. The dated look is to be expected, but the advice is rock solid and will never change, As a painter, this book has changed my perspective on portraiture for sure.

I had a very good experience. Painting the Head in Oil (Hardcover)was exactly as described by my seller, I received it promptly and it was carefully packaged. The book is in good condition and I am using it for training purposes each day. Thank you Amazon.com for yet another really good purchasing experience.

This is an excellent and really not all that advanced book on painting portraits. It is not for beginners in art but if you have a good foundation in drawing etc you will find this very instructive and easy to understand. I really like how he shows you how to set up your palette, and the demos are very clear and simple to understand.

One nice thing is that the paints mentioned in the book are actually still for sale!! You can get the kit at Jerrys Artist Outlet and other supply houses if you want to use the mixes he mentions in the book.

I highly recommend it!

A wonderful and informative book by John Howard Sanden describing his techniques used in painting the Head (portrait) in oil. I thank amazon for such a quick and fast way in acquiring the kind of books that take so much of my time searching by car.

I WOULD HAVE WANTED TO KNOW THAT THE BOOK WAS IN EXTREMELY POOR CONDITION. ALTHOUGH ALL PAGES WERE THERE, THE BOOK WAS SMEARED WITH PAINT, WRITTEN ON, AND SOME TEARS. I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED THE COST OF A NEW ONE RATHER THAN THIS BOOK. IT IS A GREAT BOOK BUT I ALREADY HAD KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONTENT THRU A FRIEND. I WAS VERY DISAPPOINTED FOR THE AMOUNT OF MONEY I PAID.