Art school averages $42,000
a year. In comparison, these books are a steal.
The most important book I recommend to my students is Art
& Fear: Observations On the Perils
(and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland. This slim
volume (I’ve always wanted to say that) lays out the fundamental rule of
artmaking: if you want to be an artist, you have to make art, lots of it, over
and over again.
Drawing is a skill, not a talent. Not being able to do it
holds you back as a painter. Sketching
from Square One to Trafalgar Square, by Richard Scott, is a series of exercises
that will take you from simple measurement to complex architecture.
If you’re looking for similar exercises in figure drawing, I recommend Drawing the Human Form, by William A. Berry. It’s based on anatomy, not style.
Every art studio should have one anatomy textbook. I use Atlas
of Human Anatomy, by Frank H. Netter. Netter was both a doctor and an
artist, and he did his own beautiful illustrations. There are other, art-targeted,
anatomy books, but this provides all the information I need.
Landscape Painting Inside and Out, by Kevin Macpherson, is a clear, concise guide to getting paint from the tube to the canvas.
I have a shelf full of watercolor books, but my primary pigment
reference is a website, Handprint, by Bruce MacEvoy.
This has replaced the classic Blue
and Yellow Don’t Make Green, by David Wilcox. There are many different
ways to get watercolor on paper. If you want to buy only one book on the
subject, try The
Complete Watercolorist's Essential Notebook, by Gordon MacKenzie.
There are two color books I love. The first is Josef Albers’
Interaction
of Color, which is filled with exercises to understand how color works.
It’s fifty years old. The writing is dense to our modern sensibilities, but
stick with it.
Bright
Earth: Art and the Invention of Color, by Philip Ball, is a brilliant,
readable treatise on how chemistry and technology have combined to influence
art. (It’s far better than Victoria Finlay’s Color,
which is merely a travelogue.) When you’re done reading it, you should have a
firm handle on the differences between earth, organic and twentieth-century pigments.
I have shelves full of catalogues
raisonné, museum guides, and other illustrated histories of art, but three
books compel me over and over. The first is Sister Wendy’s 1000
Masterpieces. It is a simple compendium of things she likes. Fortunately,
she has great taste. The internet wasn’t a big deal when she wrote this, but use
it as a starting point for your own online research on artists.
The
Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, by David Silcox, deals with the painters
who’ve most influenced me. Growing up in the shadow of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, I had no concept
of twentieth-century realism, but there it was, being made right across border
from me.
John
Constable: The Making of a Master, by Mark Evans, illustrates a simple
truth of landscape painting: it all starts outdoors.
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