Full Description
Take your plein air artwork to the next level through easy-to-understand workshop-style lessons and skill-building exercises.
In Plein Air Techniques for Artists, award-winning artist and respected workshop instructor Aimee Erickson demystifies how to capture a variety of light effects and guides you in strengthening your plein air skills through practice. This accessible book covers:
Materials and gear. Gain a basic knowledge of the possibilities so you can keep your options open and your plein air process fresh.
Composition and value. Explore the impact of proportion, color, value, line, edges, shape, and texture.
Color. Consider how knowledge and intention, your color palette, and what you see—your perspective—take turns being in charge of the color game, inventing rules and finding solutions.
Light effects. Learn how conditions of the day—how much light there is, and whether it's soft, diffuse, golden, harsh, pale, or dusky—affect everything we see and how we paint.
Design and the visual idea. Discover strategies for developing a visual idea, from creating serial studies to working with a camera to improvisation.
Featuring exceptional still lifes, figures, and landscapes by other noted artists working in a range of mediums, Plein Air Techniques for Artists gives artists at all levels of experience the guidance they need to grow as a plein air artist.
The For Artists series expertly guides and instructs artists at all skill levels who want to develop their classical drawing and painting skills and create realistic and representational art.
Contents
CONTENTS
Introduction
Finding "The Zone"
1 MATERIALS AND GEAR
What's Your Medium?
Brushes and Brushstrokes
Supports: Canvas, Panels, and Paper
Plein Air Painting Kit
2 COMPOSITION AND VALUE
Making Interesting Compositions
Black and White
Sketchbook Exercise: Notan
Value
Exercise: Simplified Value Studies
3 COLOR
Speaking of Color . . .
Color Exercises
Exercise: A Color Chart, Emphasizing Value
Exercise: Color Ladders
Limited Palettes
Color Development of Value Studies
SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW
Seeing Skills: Shift Your Perception
Light, Shadow, and Color
Demonstration: Light and Shadow
on Architecture
Where to Start
Exercise: The Color of Light
Raking Light
Technique: Stain It, Draw It, Paint It
Perspective
Foreground Solutions
5 INDIRECT LIGHT
Dappled and Filtered Light
Technique: Starting with
a Mid-Tone Canvas
Demonstration: Large Scale Work
Demonstration: Dappled Afternoon Light
Overcast Light
Demonstration: A Two-Session Painting
Technique: Cutting In
Painting Makeover: Light and Shadow
Relationships
Technique: Using a Broad Brush
Shade and Reflected Light
6 BACKLIGHT
Rim Light
Contre-Jour: Against the Light
Transmitted Light
Technique: A Loose Start
Painting Makeover: Perspective
