Archive for category Author: Suzanne Brooker
Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing || Suzanne Brooker
Posted by Henry in Author: Suzanne Brooker, Medium: Drawing, Publisher: Watson Guptill, Subject: Landscape on Jan 21, 2019
This masterclass in landscape drawing contains a wealth of information, both practical and theoretical. A lot of Watson Guptill books are ones to read rather than work with, but there are quite a lot of exercises and demonstrations here, covering elements such as clouds and skies, hills, trees and water. Suzanne also discusses marks and lines, composition, texture and shading.
In spite of the amount and density of the information presented, the generous page size means that the layout never feels crammed and you’re unlikely ever to feel overwhelmed. This is helped in part by the sensible chapter structure that is both progressive and topical. It’s a comprehensive guide that should prove thoroughly rewarding.
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The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting || Suzanne Brooker
Posted by Henry in Author: Suzanne Brooker, Medium: Oil, Publisher: Watson Guptill, Subject: Landscape on Feb 16, 2016
This thorough and comprehensive guide makes use of explanations, photographs, examples, exercises and demonstrations to teach ways to handle sky, terrain, trees and water.
As with a lot of Watson Guptill books, it’s something to sit down and read, rather than use as a workbook and the text involves quite a lot of discussion rather than simply prescriptive instruction. If you have little patience with that kind of thing, it’ll exasperate you. On the other hand, if you find a list of things to do limiting, you’ll be in your element here. It’s beautifully produced and a pleasure to handle.
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Portrait Painting Atelier || Suzanne Brooker
Posted by Henry in Author: Suzanne Brooker, Medium: Oil, Publisher: Watson Guptill, Subject: Portraiture on Feb 1, 2010
Good portrait painting books come along all too infrequently and something which takes the subject seriously and looks at it in such depth as this is to be welcomed. Suzanne Brooker examines every aspect of portrait painting, from style to facial features and expressions to composition and painting methods. There’s a great deal to read here, but there are also plenty of illustrations to leaven and punctuate it so that you’re never left struggling for comprehension. There is a also a generous series of demonstration paintings which are described in some detail. Although, as a result, they have fewer stage illustrations than has perhaps become the norm, they are, I think, more suited to the more technically advanced artist, the sort of person who is likely to be going into portraiture seriously. In any case, the whole book is anything but an introduction for the beginner and will appeal to (and should satisfy) the more demanding reader. It is a large and quite heavy tome that rewards extended study and is admirably comprehensive both in its coverage and its execution of that coverage.
If I have a reservation, it’s perhaps that the style of painting tends rather heavily towards the old-master that’s (admittedly) implied in the subtitle, but it is an American book and American portraiture can be rather like that. I still think you can learn a lot from it, though and I don’t think you’d feel your money was wasted. If that sounds like faint praise, it’s not meant to be.
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