Recommended Books on Painting

The best way to improve your painting is to just "do it". Nonetheless, there are some excellent books on the subject by masterful painters. Here are a few of my favorites.

Alla Prima - Everything I Know About Painting, Richard Schmidt - ISBN # 0-9662117-3-1
Published by Stove Prairie Press, LLC www.richardschmid.com
Whether your goal is painting landscapes, figures, or still lifes, you would be hard-pressed to find a better book on technique and creative thinking.

Painting Better Landscapes, Margaret Kessler - ISBN # 0-8230-3576-X
Published by Watson-Guptill
This book offers 15 chapters; each chapter presents a different aspect of painting designed to help begniining or experienced painters with critiques of their own work.
More on this book.

Problem Solving for Oil Painters, Gregg Kreutz - ISBN # 0-8230-4408-4
Published by Watson-Guptill
A great book by a terrific painter - landscapes, still lifes, and figures - that helps you with those nagging problems of composition, value, and color. www.greggkreutz.com

Composition of Outdoor Painting, Edgar Payne - ISBN # 0-944699-02-2
Originally published by the author; distributed by DeRu's Fine Art Books
This is a short, concise book on the essentials of outdoor painting by one of the great 20th Century plein air artists, Edgar Payne. His thoughts on creativity and intention illuminate the process of composing the elements in a painting.

Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting, John F. Carlson
Originally published by this well-known American artist and teacher in 1929, the book is now available from Dover Publications. This book provides good advice on what to look for in choosing a subject to paint and unravels the mysteries of color, atmospheric conditions and other phenomena found in nature. Note that the section on materials is somewhat outdated.