Painting Flowers

Rating:
Summary: Workshop Full of Ideas & Exercises
Review: This is one of my most favorite art books in my entire collection. If I had to sell my books for money this would probably be one of the last ones I'd let go. In fact, I can't ever see myself selling it. So why did I give it a 4 instead of the 5 my heart tells me it deserves? Keep reading, I'll explain that in a minute.

The book draws lessons from a variety of floral artists using a variety of media. Every lesson, every tip includes suggested ideas and exercises for practicing what you just learned. That is one of my most favorite things about this book - it is chock full of them. It actually helps you get out your pencil and start working on something that practices what you just learned. If you are familiar with Nita Leland's book Creative Artist (another book I highly recommend) then you know what I'm talking about when I say suggestions and exercises. I really wish more art instruction books would do this.

Part One discusses the anatomy of a flower, selecting and arranging them for a powerful composition, caring for flowers & what one can learn from the art of botanical illustration.

Parts Two,Three & Four deal with more general artistic principles as applied to floral painting. Some of the subjects discussed include creating variety with sameness, format and viewpoint, working with the edges of your support, designing the painting space, composing with color, mixing for sponteneity, setting up compositional challenges, working on a black background, tension and release, evoking mood, generating dynamic excitement, moving from simple to complex, creating visual ambiguities, etc. There are far too many lessons to describe here but hopefully this gives a small sampling of some of the areas covered.

Unlike many recent art instruction books it does not use the painting-in-progress method to teach. Only the finished work is shown with visual aids at times to help clarify a point the text is trying to make.

Parts Five moves on to the subject of gardens - painting beautiful garden scenes rather than the more usual still life. The lessons from the previous chapters are expanded and explored for the larger subject matter (I've always thought "plein aire" was a silly & pretentious way of saying outdoors).

In my estimate the true value of this book lies in its emphasis on creativity & art design principles. This book is practically several semesters of art school instruction on the principles of what make some paintings compelling and powerful while others are just middle-of-the-road. It just happens to use flowers as the subject for driving these important lessons home. It probably could've just as easily been titled something like Lessons in Art Principles & Creativity and subtitled Using Flowers as Subjects. Practically the ONLY reason I rated this book a 4 instead of a 5 (and I had to sit and think about whether to do that or not) is because the subject matter is only flowers. This could potentially be off-putting to someone who finds the subject of floral paintings boring. *Sigh*...Their loss if they miss this book - it is THAT good.

My point is that this book is really too good with the lessons it teaches to restrict it to only floral artists. That would be a darn shame. Each exercise and suggestion reinforces a principle just learned. The lessons and principles are powerful and timeless. They must be applied to ANY style of art no matter what the subject. Landscape & seascape painters, portrait artists, computer artists, commercial artists...EVERY artist can benefit from this Art School in a Book book.