Seeing and Painting the Colors of Nature [Hardcover]

Joseph Dawley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1987

An instructive book demonstrating the techniques necessary for mastering a loose, colourful, Impressionistic style. The author traces his own painting evolution from traditional methods to an Impressionistic approach, which was a result of a different use of palette and brushwork. To further illustrate this point, as a comparison, he repainted earlier paintings in his new style. The subjects he chose were country lanes, tree-lined boulevards, woods and rivers. The use of photographs as reference is recommended by the authors as a means of interpreting colour, light and composition. Their previous books are "The Painter's Problem Book" and "The Second Painter's Problem Book".

Product Details

• Hardcover: 143 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill (November 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082304761X
• ISBN-13: 978-0823047611
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,038,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great book, June 7, 2006

By 

Wyota - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seeing and Painting the Colors of Nature (Hardcover)

Let me start by saying it's a great book! It's an 8 1/2" x 11" book full of large color illustrations - 200 in total. The only B&W image is the author's photo on the jacket. That's a huge plus. Too many times in the book store I've picked up books on impressionism to find more B&W plates than color. I don't see the point of showing impressionist paintings in B&W... even when discussing just composition.

The book addresses over 50 topics on painting impressionist style paintings with multiple discussions on colors, brushstrokes, figures, composition, and more. Each topic is illustrated with one or more paintings by Dawley and many include one or more close-ups and even photographs of the original scene to reference.

To me, a realist painter who wants to be a little more painterly or dabble in impressionism, this is an invaluable reference that illustrates and describes concepts that I can learn from and apply to my work. I believe it would be even more valuable to someone whose main goal is to paint like the impressionists.

FYI - This book is subtitled "An Impressionist's View" and is the same book with that subtitle available on Amazon.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Book!, July 12, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Seeing and Painting the Colors of Nature (Hardcover)

This book has beautiful illustrations and would be an asset to any landscape painter's library.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Teaching Style, July 17, 2011

By 

dmarkdw - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seeing and Painting the Colors of Nature (Hardcover)

Dawley was an accomplished traditional painter but lost his ability to paint details due to health issues. And so while the book deals heavily with impressionist art, many of the examples show a traditional painting, an impressionist painting and photographs that were used as subject matter. It's interesting to see a photo of a man holding a horse and two other photos of individuals. These elements were brought together in the paintings, so that three men were standing around this horse. Then he contrasts the differences in the traditional and impressionist painting, that he has composed from these different photographs. I am currently not interested in pursuing impressionist painting, however this book is one of my favorites. He talks of composition, colors, contrasts, light, depth of field, and much more. These things after all are common in all styles and mediums of art, and Dawley is a master at revealing the secrets of this field.