Best oil painting books according to redditors

Wow, thanks! Um, the best thing I ever learned about color was to liberally use warms and cools to indicate planes and depth, and (as an extension of that) never use black or white paint. This book is technically about oil painting, but has a lot of excellent color advice for all types of painting. Hope those links are interesting/helpful! :)

Your colors look great, very autumn! So you did great with those.

Another good book to read is Carlson's Guide to Landscape painting
( https://www.amazon.com/Carlsons-Guide-Landscape-Painting-Carlson/dp/0486229270 )

What he talks about in that book is how we can never replicate the full range of values or colors that exist in nature... the best we can do is have each patch of color on the canvas have a consistent relationship with the other patches. So, like, right now I'm working on a picture of a garage. I can't get the exact color I saw but I can make the shadowy areas darker and cooler (more blue) and the areas in sunlight lighter and warmer (more yellow). That way they are correct relative to each other. If you get the structure of the relationships right, then you won't have to worry about matching exactly. Let go of matching exactly and work on making things relatively correct.

Here's Stapleton Kearns on value in the landscape http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2013/10/confounding-color-and-value-in-landscape.html

Anyway, I'm rambling here, but I think this landscape is a really great start, keep going. My process has been, read some books and do some exercises, try a painting keeping one or two ideas in my head, repeat repeat repeat. It's been an incremental process for me. The main thing is the work and trying again and again.

You got this, have fun! :)

http://www.amazon.com/Brushwork-Essentials-Mark-Christopher-Weber/dp/1440306745
this book goes into detail about loading your brush, cleaning it and various types of brush strokes.. I saw a pdf version when i googled it. otherwise, your painting is pretty good for just starting in oils

A wet palette will definitely help increase the paint's working life. Another option is to use some sort of blending medium for acrylic paint. They are usually a drying retarder and can double the working life of the paint.

When working with acrylic paint, you've got to work fairly quickly or in small areas otherwise the paint starts to set. Don't put too much on your brush, and clean the brush fairly often to prevent it gumming up.

The other option is to use artists oil paints - they have tremendous color range, dry very slowly and are available in formulations that allow water cleanup. The studio set of 10 is probably all you need to get started. With that and a color mixing guide you'll be set.

I can recommend you a good landscape painting book.

https://www.amazon.com/Carlsons-Guide-Landscape-Painting-Carlson/dp/0486229270

It's very text heavy and you may initially feel disappointed with the lack of "tutorialized" instruction. But this is one of the more useful books on landscapes I've ever read.

Reeves is crap paint. Try using it up as a paint you sketch with rather than finishing a whole piece with it. The reason why economy (or student) quality paints such as Reeves are not so great (even for beginners) is because if you try to do any sort of color mixing with them, you end up with mud. Reason why is because the pigment to medium ratio is poor (less pigment and more fillers/mediums in the tube than a more pricey brand). I teach art classes to beginners and I am now requiring that they purchase artist-grade acrylics, oils or watercolours for class. Here's a bit of a shopping list for you... obtain the following: Golden-brand paint in these colours: Hansa Yellow Opaque, Quinacridone Magenta, Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) or Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna, Zinc White and Titanium White. Also, pick up some Golden Acrylic Glazing Medium (Gloss) or Retarder Medium to mix into your colours instead of adding water. Adding water to acrylic polymer emulsion paints breaks down the paint, therefore resulting in a less saturated, washed-out or "dull" surface. You can mix water with watercolour paints, but try using acrylic mediums such as the glazing medium instead of water. The paints I mentioned and the medium will run you about $60-$70 depending on where you live (the stuff is cheaper in the USA). If you have any questions at all about art materials, please message me and I will answer your questions. I've worked in art supplies for a some years now and have extensive product knowledge about the stuff.

As far as composition goes, I get my students to use their own photographs only. The reason is because if you take photos off the net (even though you are giving your painting away this time around), the composition has already been solved for you, so you aren't learning much when it comes to that. Use your own photos and crop them using a viewfinder window to obtain a composition for your work. Oh, and also another good practice tip would be to sketch out at least 5-10 different compositions in thumbnail format in a sketchbook (using a pen or pencil or whatever you want). That way, you will have a nice little plan before starting on a canvas.

It is always best to draw or paint from life when you can, but when you can't get outdoors to paint, be sure to stick with your own photos (or composites even; you could do this in Photoshop and then print it out).

When mixing, do not use black. I say this because it is good to learn colour theory, and then make up your mind whether or not you'd like to use black to darken areas. Complimentaries create neutral grays, so for example: Red & Green, Blue & Orange, Yellow & Purple. Theoretically, you can mix equal parts of any two complimentaries and obtain black. Add white and you get grey. Zinc white is a good one to start with because Titanium White can be overpowering. Try mixing both whites together in order to create a "Mixing White" and then use that when tinting (tint = adding white to a color). Another little trick to obtain black (and subsequent grays) is to mix Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber. You can mix Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna to create a warmer black/grey.

And now, for some books that you simply must purchase and read through! I'm real picky when it comes to good art instruction books... so here are my recommended selections :)

Color & Light by James Gurney

Landscape Painting by Mitchell Albala

Composing Pictures by Donald Graham (Disney's art instructor for many years)

Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting by John F. Carlson - written in the 1920s, this is THE DEFINITIVE book on landscape painting. The man's writing is sharp, witty and to the point)

One more thing... failure and criticism from others (and yourself) are your friends. Failure will drive you to create better work, and criticism will help you know where you aren't doing so well. Praise is great, but it can be extremely dangerous because if too many people praise you and not many give suggestions then where are you at exactly? You won't know if you've made a mistake (especially if you are just starting out).

Quantity (and quality) are everything... paint paint paint! Paint one a week or even daily if you can! Create your next post on Reddit when you've completed 30 paintings. Seeing your progress would be nice. Start a blog to keep track of your progress. Also, try and enroll in a night class at your local art university/college. Take the basics like Life Drawing first.

Oh, and... paint for yourself, first and foremost. Do not give a shit about "is this going to sell?". Do not care. Just do it for yourself. And don't be afraid to create something out of your comfort zone (pure abstraction or something with shocking subject matter).

Good luck!

This book is the best studio reference I've ever owned.

One book that was surprisingly helpful for me was Art School: How to Paint and Draw. I actually got it in the bargain bin at a book store.

A couple other helpful books are Problem Solving for Oil Painters and Color and Light.

Also, if you have an art studio around, sometimes they have cheap beginners classes. I've found those to be quite helpful starting out.

For just the composition side of things, you should check out this book by Barbara Nuss. The big point is focal points, repeated motifs, and silhouettes should sell an image regardless of the scale.