Congratulations to Bill Guffey and his Virtual Paintout project which last night featured in an interview with Mark Kelley on the Connect Programme on CBC News (Canada). I guess this month's location of Prince Edward Island generated some interest!
Click the link and then slide the bar over to just about the 00:49:15 mark to watch Bill's part of the show.
To be honest I was very much in two minds about highlighting this book as:
her website says very little about what it covers - this is what I found
Painting Impressionist Color will show that Impressionism is not, and has never been, a separate painting method. It is the foundation of all contemporary realistic painting. It will help you enhance the color in yours no matter what your style or approach. With hundreds of images and 10 demos, I hope you will find my new book to be the perfect addition to your Impressionist library. Lois Giffel - Books
I don't know precisely how it moves on and varies from her first book which had a similar topic as its subject
there's no sample on the Google site
the Lulu site very much gives an impression that there is no sample preview BUT if you persevere and keep clicking through to page 5 you can then see a sample of some of the pages
Lois was the director of the now-gone Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts, for many years, having worked closely with the previous director, Henry Hensche. (Hensche took over the School from another legendary artist, Charles Hawthorne.) Lois, also the author of Painting the Impressionist Landscape, is well-known for her use of impressionistic techniques and has a national reputation as a plein air instructor.
To be fair the contents pages in the Lulu preview do provide the contents pages covering 4 chapters.
Chapter 1: Tonalism and Impressionism - highlighting the differences between the two methods
Chapter 2: The Foundation of Good Painting - appears to focus on basics which you can find in many art instruction books
Chapter 3: Putting It All Together - includes a section on how digital photography and software can help you paint in an Impressionist style
Chapter 4: Demonstrations in various media (the focus is on oils)
I'm still left with a nagging feeling that some of the content may recap some of her first book - which I already own.
It's certainly a lesson in the need for good marketing material which explains the features and benefits of a new book when promoting a self-published book - especially for a book which costs more than £30.
The place which the Virtual Paintout is visiting in August is Prince Edward Island - off the coast of New Brunswick, Canada and very close to both Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
Prince Edward Island (PEI or P.E.I.; French: Île-du-Prince-Édouard, Scottish Gaelic: Eilean a' Phrionnsa) is a Canadianprovince consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population (excluding the territories). The island has a few other names: "Garden of the Gulf" referring to the pastoral scenery and lush agricultural lands throughout the province Prince Edward Island - wikipedia
...drag the little Yellow Man onto the map, let go while he's over a blue area, and start exploring. Find an interesting subject/area. Change it all you want. Or paint it straight up as you see it. Instructions are in the sidebar to the right. Any questions, ask 'em in the comments or email me directly. Bill Guffey - The Virtual Paintout: Prince Edward Island
20 minutes east of Souris. East Point Lighthouse is situated on the extreme eastern end of Prince Edward Island where the mighty tides of the St. Lawrence and Northumberland Strait meet to create a show of nature's force. As one of the Island's itinerant lighthouses, the East Point Lighthouse has been moved several times due to poor positioning of the light and continuing erosion of the coastline. Lighthouses of PEI
The rules
The rules are simple but must be adhered to:
participation for this virtual paintout finishes on 31st August 2010
the location must be a picture from Google Streetview (not a photo linked to the spot)
each artist must now include the URL of the location that the artwork is based upon
the image has to be at a resolution of 72 and no larger than 1000 pixels on the widest side
you cannot post to the blog direct - you have to send your pic to Bill Guffey
His books is likely to become a modern standard for learning about how to paint a landscape and I'm sure all those looking to improve their landscape artwork will enjoy his blog posts.
This video complements David Curtis's book Light and Mood in Watercolour on the same topic which is where I personally first started when finding out more about how he worked. I'd seen his paintings before and was delighted in 2005 to find a book which explained his approach.
It's also one of the more intelligent books written on this topic and is very definitely NOT one of the "dumbed down" books which get published all too often these days. It's very much a book for artists who enjoy reading!
What i like about it is that it hasn't been written in a formulaic style. It's more like a narrative interspersed with appropriate headlines and images. I guess it's a bit like listening to a tutor talking about how they approach a topic and telling you what they're doing as they do it.
So for example he talks about "Developing Ideas" and within that discusses sketching, tone and colour - rather than having specific chapters dedicated to 'Colour". It takes a bit longer to read and is less easy to scan - but actually it's a more satisfying read at the end of the day.
I particularly enjoyed the fact that there is more text - and absolutely no step by step diagrams - than many provide on the different watercolour techniques he uses. I'll do a more detailed review on Making A Mark reviews but I hope the above and the video below give you a sense of what he is about and how he approaches making his art.
This video gives you a sense of the different type of landscapes he paints in watercolour and how he tackles them in different contexts.
Here's the blurb from APV films about what the video is about
Painting outdoors in all weather conditions is very important to David. Working in pure watercolour in a loose and immediate way he is able to capture the light and mood of a place. Here he chooses to paint the pastural scenery of his native Yorkshire in the early spring as well as the city streets of London and Paris. He also works in his studio, painting a more considered watercolour using an oil painting as source material.
In this video, David Curtis is back to painting in oils and this time the 'light' is all about a lightness of touch which he likes to use when painting in oils.
Notes I made while it was playing focus on:
he likes to use scrubby strokes at the beginning of landscape paintings
palette focus on main colours used for his landscape palette
capitalise on the light and getting the patina of light right
getting the highlights marked in at the beginning of the painting
seeing the picture as a whole in terms of shapes of light and shade
a constant focus on tones and getting the register of light and dark right
the importance of developing your memory when painting plein air
the importance of NOT honing in on one area - which you might like a lot - for too lomg
Light Effects in Watercolour is the third YouTube video this week by landscape artist David Curtis. Every time I watch him work in watercolour I see things he does that I do when I sketch - which makes me feel very comfortable watching his style of painting. Which means that his way of making marks on paper in watercolour makes me think I should give watercolour another chance
I'm also finding it very illuminating to see just how watery his palette is and how big his brushes are!
This short video (2.43 minutes) comments on the treatment of light effects in watercolour - the importance of developing lost and found edges and the use of masking fluid. The boldness of the way he floods the paper while reserving lights will be energising to more people than just me!
on the same topic which is where I personally first started when finding out more about how he worked. I'd seen his paintings before and was delighted in 2005 to find a book which explained his approach.
