by Mark Christopher Weber
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Book Description
Knowing how to use a brush properly is essential for effective oil painting. Brushwork Essentials shows artists everything they need to know to render a variety of elegant strokes, along with other exciting techniques like paint mixing and brush shaping. Weber makes mastering each technique easy. He provides detailed, easy-to-follow instructions, step-by-step demonstrations and complementary artwork that highlight each brushstroke as it appears on the canvas. Readers will also learn how to use different strokes to achieve specific effects, such as lighting, shadowing and more.
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Average Customer Review:
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 A-A-A-hhhhh yes., 2007-12-13
Beautiful reproductions...
I enjoyed the information about water-soluble oils
so much that I did more research on them and
decided to give them a try.
The information regarding brushes and the way
to use them was thorough and met my expectations.
I don't trust painters who don't establish their
good credentials by showing examples of their work.
Weber did this, with his "Realistic" and "Flemish"
style paintings which showed his abilities
to draw and paint at a high level.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
great reference, 2007-11-14
I am an inexperienced beginner at oil painting who has never taken art lessons. So I read books. This book is exactly what I needed. It simply explains the different brushes, how to load them with paint and how to use them to get different effects. The text is clear and the graphics are great. I'll definitely be referring to this book again and again.
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A terrific introduction to oil painting, 2007-11-02
I'm fairly new to painting, but I have purchased a dozen books on oils, and this one has been the most helpful to me. It's pitched to the beginner or beginner-intermediate artist, not the expert.
Weber mostly makes good on his promise to show you how to do things, not just finished results. He shows you a number of different ways to load a brush, for example "shovel loading, "chisel loading, "tip pull loading," "body loading," and others. The book includes helpful close-up photos of each of these techniques. He then shows you several different ways to apply each of these loaded brushes, again with close-up photos. Using the same kind of closeups, he shows you how to mix paint. I haven't seen this level of detail in any other painting book I've purchased.
The book then goes on to demonstrate several techniques for blending, again using helpful series of photos depicting brushstrokes for blending, different stages in adding transitional colors, and thorough wet-into-wet blending. I really had no clue about blending until I read this material.
The book didn't answer all my questions. I had hoped for some detailed instruction on how to paint water, but while there are "walkthroughs" for painting roses, a mountain landscape, and a human figure, and a couple of shots of water in photos, there wasn't a systematic treatment of water. Also, the book advocates using a "wash" to start a painting without thoroughly explaining why one would do this, although it does include an adequate description of how to go about it.
But these are minor quibbles. I learned a lot from this book. I wish he'd make another, focusing on particular problems in painting, or providing more step-by-step walkthroughs, but this book will keep me busy for a while. I intend to try to reproduce his roses, for example, following his instructions.
One final caveat. Weber happens to use the very same paints I do -- the DUO Aqua water-miscible (sometimes called water-soluble) oils. So for me the book was a perfect match, as he was actually talking about pigments that I'm already somewhat familiar with. Don't get me wrong; mostly his writing has a much broader application to "regular" oils, and he's quite clear about when his comments pertain only to water-miscibles. But part of my enthusiasm for the book is the happy coincidence that he uses "my" paints. For readers who use paints with very different handling characteristics, the book might be slightly less useful. But only slightly less.
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Put This Book at the Top of your Artist Resource Booklist! A must-have., 2007-10-06
Acknowledging that the reader may or may not have discovered some of their own techniques that render expressive painting, Mark Christopher Weber respectfully shares his vast knowledge without being preachy. This book contains beautiful, high quality reproductions of Weber's finished paintings and is a delightful read. With occasional subtle humor, and easily understandable similies (ex. "consistency of mayonnaise" and "jelly on top of peanut butter") Weber helps the reader relate painting to common everyday knowledge to get the point across. He meticulously shares different ways to "load the brush" and release the stroke to get the right effect.
I found answers to many frustrating problems I was experiencing in my own foray into oil painting, even though I have been painting for several years now and had acquired and read a good collection of helpful books. If you are a good artist who struggles with just how to get that medium to do what you want, in other words, mastering it, this is a must-have reference for your artist's library, as well as a delightful read. Put it at the top on your art resource booklist.
11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Ok ... I Guess, 2007-04-26
This is a tough book to review. I give this book 3 stars (the above is inaccurate) I like the idea of learning how to apply paint to the canvas (or whatever) but somehow looking at photos and reading the text leaves something to be desired. In my opinion this would have been better as a DVD where a person could actually see the process taking place.
The review of materials (in every Northlight book) gets tedious. The author seems to assume the reader hasn't painted before; however, I doubt a beginner in painting would purchase a book on brush technique.
Brushwork Essentials does cover a lot of territory and it does demenstrate the importance of knowing what your combo of brush and paint can achieve. A lot of learning is included in the book. The problem is visualizing what the author is talking about. A couple of photos with text doesn't carry the ideas forward very well. Many people will benefit from this book, but it isn't something that is all that easy to grasp.
After buying and reading numerous art books I have become disappointed with Northlight books. They publish a ton of books on every conceiveable subject; however, they are very repetitious and often do not manage to put the ideas forward very well. Northlight should switch to DVD or other types of presentations because their books are not cutting it as far as I am concerned.
If you want to buy this book I suggest getting it used because I do not think it is worth the full price (which I paid). Cheated again by good advertising and poor execution.
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