Landscape Painting, by Mitchell Albala

First off, if you're going to invest in this, go with the hard copy.  I bought the ebook and after reading it will have to save up and buy the real thing.  Trying to navigate the ebook and see the illustrations along with the text that referred to them was cumbersome.  Artists are visual, right?  Go with the one that you can get the most visual use out of.

The sub-title of the book is Essential Concepts and Techniques for Plein Air and Studio Practice.  

I am basically a still life/figure painter.  That is what comes naturally to me and is how I think.  I have wanted to learn to paint landscapes for years and never managed to meet my own expectations.  Very few of my landscapes are in frames or have even been seen by eyes other than mine!  This book was purchased to give me some more ideas of how to think and see like a landscape artist.  Although I am still not painting what I would like to produce in this genre, I have some better idea of how to get there.

Particularly helpful to me were the chapters on "Limited Palettes" and "Simplification and Massing."  As a visual person, I see (and imagine you do too), details and colors galore.  A beginner, or a landscape dunce like myself, wants to paint every color and every detail they see.  Learning to only include what makes a good painting instead of what makes a good "picture" is essential.  I am finally beginning to understand that what I see is not as important as what I feel and want to portray to my viewer.  Color and light are more important than every leaf on a tree.  Composition should be considered instead of copying the actual scene as it presents itself to the artist.  If I want it to look like a photograph, I should just take a photograph!  Big, big lesson for me.  

As Albala describes atmosphere and light and color and how they affect one another in his chapter "Light and Color,"  the subtitle is a good introduction to the text:  "Real Light vs. Painter's Light: The Limitations of Paint."  These chapters will be read over and over until the information in them is instinctive to me and not just academic.

The final lesson to me was so liberating.  I hate trying to work from photos, but getting outside and painting is not always possible.  He shows how to use a photo for reference effectively without becoming a slave to that photo.  I painted a prickly pear cactus this week.  After studying it outside, really looking at it, I took photos of different parts of it.  In the studio I used several photos to remind myself of angles I liked and the nitty gritty details of how the pears look and how the spines grow for my sketch.  Then, I put the images away and painted from my heart.  What I produced was so much better than if I'd been sitting hunched over my photo trying to copy every detail.

Thank you, Mitchell Albala.  And reader, I would recommend this book to you as a very useful tool.  Enjoy, and paint from your heart!