Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting
by Art Instruction, John F. Carlson
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Book Reviews of Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting
Book Review: Understand and Interpret the landscape
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is an in depth look at the landscape in terms of how to understand what you see and interpret it in paint.
I became aware of it when master portrait artist Allan Banks recommended the book to a convention full of portrait artists as a way to improve portraits. It was an intriguing recommendation and, it turns out, on the mark. You get a tremendous amount of information for your buck. Carlson's words hold true today as ever. As to the lack of color illustrations, I looked through my Richard Schmid and David A.Leffel books to see their paintings confirm Carlson's insights. In a sense it was refreshing not to be distracted from the content by beautiful illustrations. The writing style is indeed "quaint". Carlson generally says "man" when we would say "artist" today. With the original copyright in 1929, I think he is allowed. Sure brought back some memories...mailman instead of postal worker. His writing style incorporates complicated double negatives instead of the positive conversational tone we use today. I suggest you just smile and absorb his wisdom. If you are overwhelmed in your attempt to organize all the "stuff" out there in a landscape, this is the book for you.
Book Review: Classic must have for landscape painters
Summary: 4 Stars
This is an essential how to guide for landscape painters. Carlson addresses the real nuts and bolts of how to paint a landscape and effectively deconstructs all aspects of the painted landscape into digestible principles and points. It has many B&W illustrations and examples of Carlson's work. In this day and age, however, it suffers from a complete lack of color pictures. It has been in print for decades and would get five stars and more if the publisher would find a landscape painter to add color reproductions of current painters who incorporate Carlson's principles, into the book. Or a companion book showing how other artists paint, using Carlson's points. There are many contemporary plein air painters, for example, who cite Carlson's tome in their list of recommended books. Any of them would add a great deal to this book and bring it into the mainstream of technique books that painters clamor for.But for pure technique, it can't be beat. Richard Schmid's book, Alla Prima, is also highly recommended, with more personal philosophy and some fantastic color reproductions of Schmid's works.
Carlson's Guide is, however, noticeably cheaper and too inexpensive not to have on your studio bookshelf.
Book Review: A book that explains WHY you paint values a certain way
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a novice pastel artist and particularly interested in painting landscapes. When I first got this book, I was disappointed and set it aside. All the pictures are in black & white -- not what I expected from a book about painting. But after my pastel teacher recommended it in class, I took a second look & read a few pages. This book is a real gem. I've been frustrated when instructors have told me to change something in my work, but not WHY I am changing it in a certain way. This book helped to answer a lot of my questions. The black & white illustrations are actually ideal, because they convey the information about correct values without the visual confusion of color. And I finally believe that you can use any colors you want if the values are correct. If you want to make your landscapes more believable, this book really helps. Now I have some concepts to give my landscapes depth and dimension. I think I might have avoided a fair amount of frustration if I'd found this book earlier. The language is a bit old fashioned, but it's a quick read and it contains immediately useful information. It may be too basic for some, but for beginning artists, it's wonderful.Book Review: PRICELESS INFORMATION!
Summary: 5 Stars
I BOUGHT THIS LITTLE GEM, ON THE RECOMMEDATION FROM MY LAST EN PLEIN AIRE INSTRUCTOR, KEN DeWAARD. HE HAS TAUGHT ME MORE, IN HIS WEEK WORKSHOP ABOUT PAINTING, THAN I HAVE LEARNED FROM ALL THE WORKSHOPS I HAVE TAKEN DOWN THROUGH THE YEARS. AND THE BASIS OF HIS TEACHING METHOD? HE WORKS TO PASS ON ONLY THE "PEARLS" OF WISDOM, LEARNED FROM MANY OF THE PAST MASTERS, WITHOUT CLUTTERING YOUR MIND WITH ALOT OF NOT-SO-RELEVENT INFO.
[HE TOLD ME THAT MOST OF HIS QUOTES COME DIRECTLY FROM CARLSON'S BOOK!]
....THE ENTIRE CLASS OF SEASONED ARTISTS CLAIMED THAT, BY THE LAST DAY, THEY HAD GROWN SO MUCH IN ABILITY AND UNDERSTANDING, THAT NO ONE WANTED THE CLASS TO END. SO, IF YOU ARE NEW AT ART, BUY THIS BOOK AND KEEP IT, UNTIL YOU HAVE ENOUGH EXPERIENCE TO UNDERSTAND THE JEWEL THAT IT IS. .... ITS BITS OF ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE, BUT ITS NOT A PICTURE BOOK..
ANYWAY, I'VE DONE COMMISSIONED PORTRAITS FOR 30 YEARS. AND YET, WITH THE COMPACTED INFO IN THIS BOOK, AND BY PAINTING THE NATURAL COLORS OF OUTDOORS, I AM FINALLY STARTING TO GROW AS AN ARTIST.
Book Review: Definitive
Summary: 5 Stars
You will learn more rereading this book than you will reading most others the first time through.
This book offers specific, well-explained examples of how and why landscape features appear, and how to render them on a canvas. Example, branches on the near side of a tree show their dark underside, while those on the far side of a tree show their light tops. Light will appear to wrap around a smaller tree's trunk, only larger trees will be truly dark.
Many books on painting offer vague generalizations and discussions, this book offers explicit instruction on every page. That said, Carlson does not offer you the "cheats" that so many books do, how to appear to render a complex subject in a few brushstrokes. This book is more for those who want to paint what they see, and as Carlson also explains, how to choose what to paint from what is seen.
Remember, a painter can capture anything he sees; a photographer can only capture what everyone sees.