The Art of Landscape Painting

From dust jacket notes: ...[N]oted landscape painter Paul Strisik takes the reader outdoors to watch over his shoulder as he demonstrates his skills at capturing the varied landscape around the country and in all seasons. Starting with a discussion of materials and equipment, the artist...describes the equipment he uses in the field - compact, yet complete enough to allow Strisik all the variety of techniques he needs - as well as studio equipment and special painting gear for traveling. Further suggestions for types of brushes, holders, cleaners, palettes, easels, and more give the reader all the basics for getting started both at home and on location. The next portion of the book is devoted to the esthetic aspects of landscape painting: conception, composition, and design. Strisik stresses selecting those elements of a scene which help the artist make a personal statement, rather than copying nature literally. He explains compositional principles and how to use them - distributing the weights in a picture, emphasizing the center of interest, knowing when and how to use cast shadows, leading the viewer's eye with lines of direction, and achieving variety and interest with counterpoint. All the visual effects of light - luminosity, diffraction, reflected light, highlights, diffused light, atmospheric perspective, and many more - are explained in the third section, along with the basics of understanding color and value relationships. Particularly helpful are the many pointers on handling color within shadowed areas, painting objects in light without 'washing out' local color, and unifying the overall color feeling within a landscape. Finally, Strisik presents a series of full-color, step-by-step demonstrations showing how he develops his carefully planned compositional studies into finished paintings. Each demonstration displays the artist's many skills and techniques every step of the way....