DVD Acrylic Painting || Chris Rose

My initial notes on this were rather frustrated – “talking head, too much detail, do I need to know this?” By the end, however, I was converted and I’m prepared to say that this is one of the best introductions to acrylic painting you could wish for. At nearly two-and-a-half hours, it’s longer than many films and, yes, it does go into a lot of detail. Do you need a full explanation and demonstration of stretching paper, for instance? Well, if you’re a beginner and you’ve never done it before, yes you do, and this is one of the few films that will show you the whole process in real time. I stopped banging my head on the desk long enough to give this a big tick. One-nil to Chris.

After a fair quantity of patient introduction, it’s time to get down to painting and the main body of the film is a single demonstration of a lakeside scene that includes a distant hillside, water and trees. The hillside allows Chris to show recession, the water brings in reflections and there are two lots of trees – middle and further distance, so detailed and not-detailed. It’s a rather brilliant choice and means that the work can be demonstrated in almost real time rather than having different topics introduced in separate demonstrations that are necessarily curtailed. If you’ve ever sat in front of a film muttering “but that’s the bit I wanted to see”, well, you’ll see it. Two-nil to Chris.

Oh, and finally, I like the man. He’s a warm and generous demonstrator who gets under your skin. He’s interesting even when he’s reminding you to clean your brushes before the paint hardens and they become useless. Three-nil and a clean sweep.

http://www.learnartandcrafthobbies.co.uk/portfolio/acrylic/

Painting Portraits in Acrylics || Hashim Akib

“Exciting” isn’t normally a word I’d associated with portraiture. “Thorough”, “lifelike”, maybe even “vibrant”, but it’s not normally a subject to get the pulses racing.

This, though, is astounding. Hashim’s style is quite blocky and, if you were looking for almost photographic realism, this is not for you. You actually have to look at the finished results for a few seconds before the features of the faces emerge. When they do, however, they’re full of character and these are people whose presence you can feel. This is something that all portrait painters strive for, but it’s one of the most difficult qualities to achieve. If personality is your goal, place your order now.

I think it also helps that Hashim appears simply to like people. I don’t think it would be possible to get results like this if you simply regarded your subjects as a job. There’s a warmth here, and an understanding of the life and light behind mere structure and outward appearance. This isn’t really something that can be taught, so I’d suggest you might simply want to learn from example here – don’t expect a magic ingredient.

In practical terms, the book offers all the variety you could want. There are male and female figures, different hair styles and skin colours and a wide range of ages. Hashim explains colour, lighting and perspective and he’s also rather good on the main features – eyes, noses, ears, etc. Here, his style is your friend as its vibrancy makes what is inevitably a rather technical section interesting and – well – exciting.

Although it’s inevitably on the idiosyncratic side – no good if you hate Hashim’s style – this is nevertheless a very complete guide.

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Acrylic Painting Step-by-Step || Wendy Jelbert, Carole Massey, David Hyde

A reissue of an earlier compilation. You can read the original review here. There doesn’t appear to be any re-origination and the image quality isn’t really up to modern standards, however.

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Painting Dog Portraits in Acrylics || Dave White

This extensive study will tell you everything you could conceivably want to know about painting dogs. It is not, it should be said, a guide for the beginner and Dave makes no attempt to explain the very basics. However, if you have some facility with painting in general and animals in particular, you’re unlikely to want any more than you get here.

There’s plenty of technical information about hair, fur, eyes, ears, noses and structure as well as the all-important methods of combining all those details into a result that looks like your subject. Dave is a professional dog painter and his audience – the owners themselves – is a demanding one. They don’t want a dog, they want their dog and Dave explains what to look for in order to capture the character of the subject as well as how to transfer that to canvas.

Although there is a section on working from photographs, which can provide a useful aide-mémoire, Dave explains the importance of spending time with the animal you’re about to paint in order to get to know it properly. He also deals with the important but often overlooked matter of the owner, of how the two relate and also what the person who is ultimately paying for the work is looking for.

This is a thorough and thoughtful guide that delivers on every count.

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Acrylics || Adrian Burrows

This is a further instalment in GMC’s series of media guides for the complete beginner. Slim and uncomplicated, these introduce basic techniques in a straightforward manner and include lessons, exercises and demonstrations that will guide even the most tentative through the processes required.

There isn’t a lot more to say than that. Adrian Burrows’ style is readily accessible and he includes a good variety of subjects and techniques. That he mostly works in the oil rather than the watercolour/wash style is no bad thing as it reduces complication and confusion. These are not intended to be exhaustive guides, and certainly not masterclasses – there are plenty of books that offer further study if you decide that the medium is for you and you want to take it further.

As a starting point, this is hard to better.

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Abstract Acrylics || Waltraud Nawratil

If you want to experiment with abstraction, but are unsure where to start, this handy guide offers a series of simple lessons that will get you pointed in the right direction.

The images included have at least one foot firmly entrenched in representation and the technique is mainly one of working with colours, shapes and spaces while keeping the main subject broadly recognisable. Each of the 27 projects occupies only a single spread, so there are no multiple and detailed steps to follow – these are ideas rather than full-on demonstrations and this is a book more about seeing and interpreting than it is about technical details. For all that, Waltraud looks at a good variety of ways of working, including transferred images, spray painting, knife-work and mixed media.

In some cases, the work is medium-specific but, as a lot of it is also about observation and inspiration, there’s plenty here that should appeal even if you don’t work in acrylics.

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Learn Acrylics Quickly || Soraya French

This series from Batsford is shaping up nicely. The key to its success is to use authors who are at home with larger books, rather than to assume that, because the format is simple, the approach can be too. In fact, it’s quite the opposite and simplicity requires greater communication skill than does complexity.

Soraya French has a pleasant, approachable and colourful style that suits the medium well. The series method is to concentrate on illustrations, explain them with straightforward captions and link them with concise paragraphs that carry the narrative and the reader forward and retain their interest.

There’s plenty here, from different types of acrylic to colours and colour mixing, working methods and a good range of subjects. If you want to get started, this will live up to its title and get you producing worthwhile results with a minimum of fuss. The more experienced student might also find it a handy source of recapping and revision.

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Painting Landscapes || Kevin Scully

This is slightly spooky. No sooner have I written about one book on landscape painting from Crowood than another one turns up. This one is much more aimed at practical aspects and sticks to the opaque media: oils, acrylics and alkyd.

As is the style with this publisher’s approach, the text is much more discursive and, along with the sort of instructions you expect in a demonstration, there is a lot more explanation of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. If you are really more interested in the general than the specific, this will appeal: you learn how to paint anything, rather than just what the author happens to put in front of you. As the old adage has it: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for life.

Why aren’t all books like this, you might ask? Well, not everyone wants what we might call the deeper philosophies or to get bogged down in what they see as detail. At the start, clear, simple instructions are best. It’s only as you progress that you begin to want, or even need, the details of what’s happening under the hood. These are books for the more experienced artist and the style, authors and level of work reflect that.

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Matthew Palmer’s Step-by-Step Guide to Watercolour Painting/Acrylics for the Absolute Beginner || Charles Evans

These two introductions to watercolour and acrylics are published in conjunction with the SAA and are not unlike the old What to Paint series that was an early development of Ready to Paint.

Both books begin with an introduction to techniques that assumes little prior knowledge and is designed to set you on the right path from the outset. They each then build to a series of projects for which outlines are provided, allowing you to get the basic drawing with proportions and perspective out of the way without having to worry about it. This approach has proved so popular that Search Press are making quite widespread (but always appropriate) use of it.

You could argue that perspective and proportion are two of the most important aspects of art and that having them done for you is not just cheating, but flattering to deceive; if you don’t tackle them at some point, you’ll never succeed as an artist. All this is true, but it’s also true that getting bogged down in technique can be massively discouraging and that success makes you want to go on and learn more. As long as you know you can only walk, you’re less likely to try to run before you’re ready.

Both of these books will get you painting and have you producing results early and reliably. This is about learning reasonably quickly and having fun – if you find you have some talent and want to progress, there are plenty of other books that will help you in that direction. You can also join the SAA and benefit from all the services they provide.

Basically, it’s a winner all round and these are well thought-out and nicely progressive books that take as much of the mystique out of painting as is possible.

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Learn to Paint Acrylics with 50 Small Paintings || Mark Daniel Nelson

I am now completely confused. When I saw this, I didn’t like it. It doesn’t compare well with its companion volume on watercolour and seems to lack the fizz that has. However, I now realise that it is, in fact, a reissue of Little Ways to Learn Acrylics, which I liked a lot.

The moral of this, I think, is always to check that books aren’t quiet reissues (this one isn’t completely silent and is acknowledged in small print on the title page). What is interesting, though, is how perception can change when comparison is made to something else. In this case, Learn to Paint in Watercolour with 50 Small Paintings has a huge amount of originality and this now looks like a pale comparison and a feeble attempt to jump on a series bandwagon. And yet it’s the same book that I liked two years ago.

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