This innovative book includes advice on solving problems, conveying mood, focusing attention, arranging subjects, and making corrections.

Paint with passion, purpose and pleasure. What do you want your landscape painting to say about this place, this moment? How do you use the visual vocabulary - line, shape, value, color, edges - to say it? With this book, your conversation with nature will direct your brush. With an exhilarating, synergistic combination of indoor and outdoor painting, Kevin Macpherson shows you how to create personal, poetic landscapes that capture the feeling of being there.Learn how to:Use a limited palette in a way that is more liberating than limiting.Experience nature to the fullest and capture its vibrancy back in the studio through photos, sketches and outdoor studies.Cope with the fleeting qualities of atmosphere and light by establishing a value plan early and sticking with it.Incorporate impressionistic touches of broken color to give your landscape a depth and vibrancy that enhances its realism.Approach painting as a layering and corrective process that encourages non-formulaic solutions.Stimulating warm-up exercises in the studio prepare you for your adventures outside, while eight step-by-step demonstrations show you how to put these methods into action. Throughout, Macpherson's own light-filled landscapes illustrate the power of these techniques.Full of fresh air and fresh art, Landscape Painting Inside and Out will guide and encourage beginners while challenging more accomplished artists to bring greater vitality and a more natural, less formulaic finish to their paintings.

Draw&Paint Realistic Trees in All Four Seaons Bestselling author and naturalist Claudia Nice is back with another studio essential for every landscape artist. Drawing&Painting Trees in the Landscape features Claudia's best tips and techniques for painting trees of all kinds in their natural settings—from the majesty of mountain evergreens to the delicate pink blossoms of cherry trees in spring. With her inspiring artistic style and in-depth visual instruction, Claudia starts with the basics, showing you how to break down reference photos and open-air vistas into simple shapes, colors and textures. Follow along as she skillfully guides you through every step of creating vibrant compositions anchored by glorious trees and foliage, including: Drawing and sketching techniques for mapping out successful compositions A variety of basic tree shapes you can reference and copy; featuring more than 40 conifers, hardwoods and deciduous trees Proven color mixes for painting an array of vibrant hues—from the many different greens of foliage to the soft pastels of spring blossoms—using watercolor, oil, acrylics or mixed media Step-by-step instructions on drawing and painting important details, such as the weathered textures of bark, the sculptural shapes of bare branches in winter, aged mossy trunks and more Techniques for working smart in any medium, such as using simple watercolor washes for distant foliage, adding details with pen&ink, and "knife painting" in oils for interesting dimensional effects Whether your goal is to make accurate field sketches for your journal, paint what you see on your travels through the countryside, or just capture familiar views of your own back yard, Claudia makes the process fun, easy and satisfying. Like a walk in the woods, with every step you'll relax, enjoy and learn something new.

Master Impressionism with an art-instruction classic. Impressionism has inspired generations of American artists. And no one has done more for the cause of American Impressionism than Charles Hawthorne, the founder of the Cape Cod School of Art. In Painting the Impressionist Landscape, author and artist Lois Griffel explores Hawthorne’s theories about color and light in depth. Griffel, the longtime director of the school Hawthorne founded, teaches his philosophy like no other painter can, with inspiring step-by-step painting lessons and illuminating text. A true classic of art instruction, Painting the Impressionist Landscape has sold more than 30,000 copies in hardcover in the fifteen years since it was first published. Now a new generation of painters can bring impressionism into their work with this convenient and affordable paperback edition.

Capture the Magic of the Sea with Claudia NiceNobody captures the misty splashes and weathered details of seascapes quite like Claudia Nice. In this step-by-step guide, Claudia shares her special approach to creating dynamic watercolor compositions textured with pen and ink, acrylics and gouache.Claudia starts with the basics, so you can advance at your own pace as you follow along through more than 60 step-by-step demonstrations ranging from short mini demos to full-scale paintings. Take a look inside to see how simple and inspiring Claudia's instruction can be.Each chapter focuses on a different element of coastal scenery, including crashing waves against rocky bluffs, wide sandy beaches and gently rolling surf, colorful boats and harbors, luminous ocean sunsets, and warm tropical scenes with kids and dogs at play.You'll find complete instructions for mixing the colors of active and still water, as well as creating the textures of sand and rock. Claudia also features her own reference photos and field studies to show you how to build solid compositions from a variety of sources. Dozens of quick tips teach you the details that add drama and realism to your seascapes, and 30 complete paintings will inspire you to create your own beautiful coastal scenes. With Claudia Nice, learning to paint lively seascapes is like spending a day at the beach!

Why did a woman in California pay an artist $5,000 to paint her cat to look like a pig? What made a New York stockbroker spend even more than that to have the image of Charlie Chaplin painted on his cat'¬?s posterior? WHY PAINT CATS reveals that, far from being an amusement for the idle rich, this seemingly aberrant behavior is part of a new art movement that claims to promote a better understanding of the cats in our lives. Following the international success of their previous collaboration of feline aesthetics, WHY CATS PAINT, Burton Silver and Heather Busch turn their scholarly attention to the cat as canvas. The authors detail all the latest trends in the movement, including the highly controversial Retromingent Expressionism, drawing conclusions that will provoke and amuse, startle, and enlighten. Exhaustively researched and lavishly illustrated, this insightful and engaging book raises important ethical questions and explores the rights of pet owners to reinvent their cats in the name of art.

Discover the benefits of completing a watercolor painting in 30 minutes or lessSpending hours or even days on a watercolor painting can lead to dull, muddy results. But a surefire way to keep your paintings loose and fresh is to work quickly! In this informative, 64-page book, accomplished artist Paul Talbot-Greaves proves that painting in watercolor doesn't have to be an all-day event. In fact, an impressive landscape scene can be created in just 30 minutes or less, which Paul demonstrates in 27 step-by-step lessons. To discourage readers from overworking their paintings, the author breaks down each lesson into short blocks of time, indicating how many minutes should be spent on each stage. In addition, he provides practical information on tone, color, pattern, light, and more, so readers can improve their skills and develop their "artist's eye."

Award-winning artist Roy Lang shows artists how to capture in oils the power and majesty of water and air in this guidebook. Instructing readers on how the sea and sky interact in nature and how to portray their many moods, this study includes detailed sections on the properties of light and atmosphere to provide an ideal starting point for beginners. From selecting the proper materials to understanding composition, this manual features dozens of expert hints and tips for any level of artist and contains two step-by-step demonstrations that explain how to paint the sea and sky.

Landscape Meditations examines the process of capturing a sense of place through a series of views of a single landscape subject, like Van Gogh did with sunflowers or Monet did with haystacks and cathedrals. Topics explored include using mist, wildflowers, the beach, fields, trees, and roads and pathways. Each of these topics begins with a brief introduction to the specific theme, followed by paintings that show the progression of the idea being explored. A concluding discussion provides artists with further thoughts about how the theme might apply to their work.• For landscape painters at all levels of ability and in all painting mediums• From the author of The Poetic Landscape (0-8230-4067-4), which has sold more than 16,000 copies, and The Pastelist's Year (0-8230-3935-8), which has sold 10,000 copies• Includes the work of such landscape masters as Camille Corot, Martin Johnson Heade, and George Juness