The Bottom Line
This book is a guide to analyzing your paintings. As such, it is a valuable tool to understanding how you paint. Each section and the subsequent questions are very helpful in helping your own work advance and sharpening your artistic eye.
Pros
- Text is concise and to the point. There is little extemporaneous text .
- Good variety of examples with well supported argument
- Logical approach to the ideas; thought processes were well developed.
Cons
- Relies a little too much on charcoal sketches as opposed to paintings in the beginning of the book
- Discussion on alternative supports vs canvas could have been more fully developed
- Some people may object to nudes in some of the illustrations.
Description
- First published by Watson Guptill as a hardback in 1986, paperback edition published in 1997.
- ISBN 9780823044085 (hardback) and 9780823040971 (paperback).
- 144 pages including index.
Guide Review - Problem Solving for Oil Painters by Gregg Kreutz
Seldom do I recommend a book to other artists. Frankly, I find most not worth their very high prices. Most books tend to promote their author’s style and technique. While this can be useful, it can also be frustrating and limiting. But this book is an exception.
We often refer to our paintings as our "children" but what do we do when they act up? Analyzing your own work can be difficult and many of us lack the training to do so. Putting your finger on just what is wrong can be hard. How do we step back and look dispassionately at our "child"? Problem solving for Oil Painters by Gregg Kreutz helps us do just that.
This is not a book about technique or style, but the components that make up a successful painting. The book goes over things like the ideas behind the painting, the basic shapes of the major and minor elements, light, shadows, etc. There are no lessons or projects or exercises, just questions and examples of how the author answered them.
While the book reads well, and is enjoyable. It is also one you can keep on the shelf and refer to when one of your "problem children" act up.
The book is laid out in a series of elements a good painting should have. A subject is introduced, explained and the artist’s own philosophy is stated. But this is not belabored. After a few brief paragraphs, there in follows a series of questions related to that subject that you can ask yourself during all phases of painting.
These questions are illustrated both bad and good with either drawings or examples of the author’s own paintings. The book starts with the initial idea leading to the painting, through the blocking in of the basic shapes, development of value, light and shadow to the degree of completeness necessary to convey the beginning idea.
Overall, I give it a four-star rating because it is very helpful to the creative process.
