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Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color [Paperback]

Kevin Macpherson (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
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Product Description

For the beginner or experienced painter, this book provided inspiration and insight into the art of watercolour. Learn how the unusual techniques of pouring paint and masking give a glowing quality to the picture. Pouring causes the colour to tint rather than cover the paper while masking allows more freedom in applying colours.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 144 pages
  • Publisher: North Light Books (March 1, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1581800533
  • ISBN-13: 978-1581800531
  • Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #31,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
    #26 in  Books > Arts & Photography > Painting

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Kevin D. Macpherson
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Over time, I've developed workable painting stations for indoor and outdoor use. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
color isolator, shadow family, lightest light, main light source, light family, color note, big shapes, darkest dark, major shapes, painting outdoors, color relationships, negative shapes, studio painting
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Titanium White, Yellow Ochre
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Marker Magic by Richard M. McGarry
 

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Customer Reviews

40 Reviews
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68 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Better than Lois Griffel!, June 9, 2005
By S. Harrison (Clements, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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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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51 of 53 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
By Michael (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
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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40 of 41 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
By paintingmn "rock995" (Baton Rouge, LA United States) - See all my reviews
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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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear, informative and beautiful
My painting teacher recommended this book to me as one of the two best books she owns. I have used it to study light and dark spaces. I love the book so far.
Published 4 months ago by Kahte J. Hines

4.0 out of 5 stars A master teacher - but this is not his best book.
Got both Landscape Painting Inside & Out and Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color from the library. Landscape Painting Inside & Out is awesome. Read more
Published 5 months ago by A. Khosla

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant color, brilliant book.
This book is excellent, particularly for the beginner oil painter, such as I am. The chapters are well laid out and easy to read. MacPherson makes painting seem so easy! Read more
Published 6 months ago by Sunny Beech

5.0 out of 5 stars raises your level of painting
this is a great book to help beginners get started and those who have gotten 'stuck' get through some basic exercises to make it easy to start painting again. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Dawn Yoshimura

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
An important source of information on the process of oil painting and the planning for a successful process. Read more
Published 8 months ago by L. Behrends

5.0 out of 5 stars The bible for oil painters
I have read many art books in various media and Kevin Macpherson's book is THE book to get to pull together the materials, technique, and philosophy of oil painting. . . Read more
Published 9 months ago by Linda K. Welsch

4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful book
Although I've been painting for a few years, I still found this book helpful. The author is very grounded and practical, and I like his back-to-basics, build a solid foundation... Read more
Published 10 months ago by S. Trottier

4.0 out of 5 stars Oil Paintings with Light & Colour
The best book I have found dealing with this topic, it DOES explain to the oil painter how to 'fill their paintings with light and colour'. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Heather Anne

5.0 out of 5 stars the best "how-to" book I own
Not a long review because others have said it better, just wanted to give it 5 stars. I also have Griffel's book which is very good but this one is the one I reference more often... Read more
Published 15 months ago by bookloverFLA

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book for Plein Air Painting
This book helped me launch myself into plein air (painting outdoors) in oils. He recommends a limited palette of colors, and gives lots of encouragement on getting lots of... Read more
Published 22 months ago by M. Lee

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