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 | | Mastering Composition: Techniques and Principles to Dramatically Improve Your Painting (Mastering (North Light Books)) by Ian Roberts ISBN-10: 9781581809244 ISBN-10: 1-58180-924-7 ISBN-13: 9781581809244 ISBN-13: 978-1-58180-924-4 Hardcover 2007-11-29 North Light Books Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description Create Better Compositions by Design The path to better painting begins with Mastering Composition. This effective guide blends clear, visual instruction with 5 step-by-step demonstrations to show you how to plan and paint your best work yet. Composition is the key, and here you'll learn to design paintings with new skill and confidence. It all begins with the armature or structure of the picture plane. Every great painting has one, and you'll see through several famous examples exactly how the Old Masters used armatures to create movement, narrative, harmony and fluidity. Based on these examples, you'll practice what you've learned following a series of hands-on demonstrations. Once you understand the basic principles of design, you'll be amazed at how quickly and effectively your compositions come together. Soon you will be painting more boldly and confidently than ever before with less reworking and overworking. Whether you're a beginner looking for basic instruction or a more advanced painter troubleshooting a specific problem, the proven methods in this book will work for you. Ideal for all mediums, Mastering Composition gives you the knowledge you need to create powerful paintings out of every subject. | ||
Reviews | ||
Excellent reference for nonartist as well. I bought this last month to supplement my collection of WC instruction/reference books. I've read it twice already and have begun annotating it with comments gleaned from notes I've made over the years, things remembered from other reference texts (some going back to the mid-1800s), and from personal experience. Mr. Roberts' discussions of the process of composing a subject are thorough and practical while avoiding the "mystical" passages found in some how-to books. In this connection, I was pleasantly surprised to find that his practical discussions were useful in helping me prepare continuing education classes concentrating on 19th Century American landscape painting techniques. This book is now my first suggestion when someone, artist or artfan alike, asks for source material on "Composition - What's it mean and how do I do it?" | ||
Mastering Composition: Techniques and Principles... I had eyed this book for over a year now. I knew I needed the composition principles to make a really great piece of art. I am doing mixed media- water color with pastel, water color with India ink. So glad I finally treated myself. It was worth the wait. Love it, love it, love it- so like I said - This book is a must have for serious self taught artists :-) | ||
Best Book on Composition I've Found - Ever! Powerful resource for understanding and applying use of value, shape masses, color temperature, cropping, leading the eye - you name it. Whether you create representational art, abstract art or anything in between - this book is a MUST HAVE for your library, especially if you struggle with composition. Get it, read it, DO THE EXERCISES and you can't help but improve. I've been teaching painting and drawing for over 20 years. I live in a highly art centered area of the U.S. and I see a lot of very skilled artists who have either no understanding of composition, or who easily forget their compositional structure by getting themselves lost in detail, color, etc. This is a book that will help bring you back on track. For beginners, this book is easy to understand, easy to use, easy to absorb, and masterfully articulate - plus it's FUN! For the experienced Artist, this book is an excellent review and re-review tool. The bonus DVD shows how subtle changes can make a huge difference and really helps to drive home the importance of how value and color can make or break a composition. I highly recommend this book. Wendy Froshay www.TheArtMentor.com | ||
Mastering Your Creative Core By Using Shapes, Their Arrangement, And Visual Flow Artist and author Ian Roberts has given us a gem of a book with his recently published "Mastering Composition." This book is an outgrowth of two events in Roberts life. As a child, Canadian Roberts joined his dad and his dad's artist friends on an annual plein aire painting trip to the United States. At the end of each day, the painters discussed and criticized one another's work. Much of the discussion centered on composition - "foregrounds were too cluttered," what works for the eye in the painting, and what does not. Then, later, as a professional artist and teacher, he noticed that most of his students created paintings that were superficial and "looked like postcards." He decided to focus on getting his students to use their creative core and think "behind" the subject matter: "think first about shapes, their arrangement in the picture plane; and the visual flow being created in the painting." "Mastering Composition," according to Roberts, could have just as easily been titled, "Shapes, Shapes, and Shapes" with the subtitle, "Their arrangement, interaction, and flow on the picture plane." The book begins with an excellent discourse on what composition is and how one can use the book to grow as an artist. He is insistent on self-directed study which includes doing one composition (sketch) per day for one year. The book is very well written, includes practical rules to follow, and is illustrated with plenty of before and after demonstrations, as well as examples from Masters of the 19th and 20th Century. "Mastering Composition" is organized around six subjects: Armatures - how to arrange shapes and how to create coherent flow; Abstract Masses - how to think in value masses not in subjects; Color Shapes - how these are all that we really have to create meaning, how to understand them and use them effectively to express our creative core; Guiding the eye through a picture plane; Gallery of the Greats - 19th and 20th Century Masters; and, Your Artistic Voice. Ian Roberts is a great teacher and a great communicator of concepts. This book will provide valuable insights into the painting process and the creation of meaning from one's creative core. "Mastering Composition" is a must-have book for all painters. | ||
Nothing new Like many art books of this kind, the title overstates the content. The content is mostly a rehash of many other books on this topic, many of which I already own. Not a bad primer, and worth reading if you haven't already studied the basics of composition. | ||