Tag: #Landscape painting—Technique

Author: Foster Caddell
Title: Keys to Successful Landscape Painting
Year: 1983
Format: PDF
Pages: 154
Language: English
Size: 28.9 MB

Free Download: Keys to Successful Landscape Painting

Here is a truly unique landscape painting book: a series of 50 “keys” to painting successful landscapes in oil. Foster Caddell, founder of the famed Northlight Art School in Connecticut, spotlights 50 common problems encountered by the beginning painter and provides simple, logical solutions. Each problem is shown in a typical beginner’s painting and then the author shows the solution in an improved version of the student painting.

The keys concentrate on eight areas of difficulty—design, light, skies, water, trees, shadows, color, and space. Among the keys to successful landscape painting that every painter will find indispensable are how to: choose an unusual vantage point; group lights and darks to avoid a spotty painting; guide the viewer’s eye with directional lines; choose the best lighting for the subject; utilize patterns of sunlight on buildings; paint the sun’s “rays” for dramatic lighting; utilize backlighting to dramatize shapes; indicate the light source; paint luminous shadows; create distance with color; repeat colors for unity; vary cloud shapes for better design; diminish values for a greater feeling of distance; create depth hy strengthening foreground detail; maintain distinct spatial planes; find color in “white” water; make water recede by keeping it below eye level.

In studying these keys, the reader develops his powers of self criticism; learns to recognize his painting problems; and then learns how to come up with professional solutionsthat transform a routine picture intoadramaticand memorable statement.