Trees can be one of the most tricky subjects for the artist because, like flowers, everyone knows when you’ve got it wrong! For all that, there are relatively few books devoted to them, largely because they are more of a landscape element than a subject in its own right: painting a landscape, all you really need is a sufficient variety of generic types with or without foliage (according to the season). The details of how a hornbeam differs from a maple are really not relevant!
Given how early in their career beginners are going to encounter this problem, the Ready To Paint series really couldn’t be better suited to the subject of trees. The approach of a printed outline sketch that you can trace, itself linked to a series of very detailed step-by-step demonstrations makes learning the tricks of the trade a relatively painless process and you really do feel that someone is holding your hand all the way.
For some subjects, there have to be reservations about this approach and care has to be taken not to allow it to descend into painting by numbers, but here it’s in its element.
Search Press 2008
£8.99
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