Oil Painting Medic is a practical guide to oil painting techniques, materials and troubleshooting. NOTHING on here is AI. Begin with Home or Start Here. Browse my Artbooks and Whats Trending. With copious articles covering portraiture, landscapes, still life, and problem solving, this blog helps artists improve technique and overcome challenges. Navigate by theme in the sidebar.

Why Do My Clouds Look Like Cotton Wool? Art Instruction Book

Take a look at my new book on landscape art that tackles common peeves associated with landscape painting, such as painting water, skies and mountains. Now available in large edition.

Why do my Clouds Look Like Cotton Wool Rachel Shirley
Inspired by this blog and my experience teaching art, this book is a compilation of difficulties artists and beginners often face when landscape painting. Bursting with colour images and almost 30,000 words. Hard copy measures 10x8in and is 85 pages.

Art Solutions for Landscape Painting

Many solutions for landscape art are suggested, including techniques for painting clouds, reflections in water and shadows. By simple strategies, the artist can avoid garish colours in flowers, washed out landscape colours and buildings that appear skewed. This book also forces the artist to look harder at the subject matter, making more sensitive observations regarding the colour of snow or skies, for example, and also the contours of shadows and trees.

Common Peeves with Landscape Art

My years of teaching have highlighted recurrent themes with creative processes, the causes of which are more often than not the dictatorial part of the brain that insists it knows better than what the eye actually sees. The secret to overcoming this dogma is to try out various painting and drawing exercises, outlined in this book. This will help avoid trees that resemble lollypops, mountains to look like cones topped with cream or of course, for clouds to look like cotton wool. View a preview on Youtube.

Colour of Landscapes

A section on colour theory is invaluable to the artist wishing to avoid bright green foliage, garish flowers, a washed out sky or tarnished sunsets. Dirty colour mixes can also be prevented with better understanding on how colours behave, particularly when trying to darken colours for shadows. See screenshot below for an idea of how the large edition looks on the inside.

Art Exercises for Landscape Painting

Inside preview of art book about landscape art Rachel Shirley
Troubleshooting Book for Landscape Art
Rachel Shirley
Everything the landscape artist needs to know can be found within this book, including a section on the art materials required, descriptions of the key art techniques associated with landscape painting and art practices that will develop landscape painting technique. Special art exercises will help the artist overcome a childish rendering of a landscape painting, which could deter the artist in the future. In truth, such problems can easily be overcome with the right strategies and with a little persistence.

Tips for Landscape Art in a Book

This essential guidebook for landscape art is available in 2 sizes: large edition is 8x10in and 85 pages long. The pocket sized edition is 8.5x5.5in and 195 pages. Also available on Kindle.

Incidentally, Why do My Clouds look Like Cotton Wool? is also included in an amalgam book, The Ultimate Oil Painting Solution for Landscape Art, Still Life and Portraiture. Hard copy is 10x8in and 233 pages long. Also available on Kindle.

See my page dedicated to all books by Rachel Shirley.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I have bought one of your landscape books and I find it a very good read. I am an amateur practicing with a large variety of mediums, and I will buy more books in your series to help me get started with oils. Your blogs are very helpful too.

On a related note, I have painted 3 digital versions of some of your work for my art website. If this is a copyright violation please let me know and I will remove them, and apologies if so. Currently all 3 copies credit you as the artist of the originals with links provided.
9 March 2012 at 08:46
Rachel said…
I am really pleased to hear my books have been helpful. Post me a link to your site as I would like to see it.
9 March 2012 at 12:55
Anonymous said…
The digital versions of your oil originals I made are "Tuscany", "Lavender Fields" and "Discovery":

http://david-c2011.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4o56w7

http://david-c2011.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4oieht

http://david-c2011.deviantart.com/art/Discovery-288830093

Referenced from "Oil Paintings from the Landscape".
10 March 2012 at 10:27
Rachel said…
Thanks for sharing. Love the bold colours and the effects digital art brings to the images. Since you have kindly stated the source of the compositions, copyright need not be an issue. I shall put your site on my favourites. Good luck with your future ventures.
10 March 2012 at 13:53
Anonymous said…
Thank you. Likewise.
12 March 2012 at 15:52
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