Painting: Land & Sea

Oil & Acrylic: Land and Sea: Learn to paint step by step is an expanded reprint and reformatting of a tutorial manual originally published in 2003. Re-released 7th May 2019 by Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint, it's 40 pages and available in ebook and paperbound formats. The electronic version of the book has a very handy interactive table of contents along with hyperlinked internal chapter and tutorial headings.

Roughly 10% of the page content is used in the introduction and technique chapter. There's a general tools and materials chapter followed by a very abbreviated technique and color theory chapter. These are followed by 15 complete painting tutorials. The painting tutorials range from 1 page studies to 3+ pages for more complete paintings. The tutorials presuppose a fair amount of familiarity with techniques and materials. I would say that intermediate to advanced painters will get much more out of the tutorials than complete beginners.

The chapters are full of page sidebars with useful tips and technique tricks. Each of the painting chapters includes a palette with color mixtures used. The photos and illustrations are high quality enough that in the full page finished paintings, you can make out some of the artist's underlying brushwork.

This is a useful manual (and a useful series) for the moderately advanced artist.

Four stars.

I've long admired the paintings by Vernon Kerr with his wonderful use of colour and looked forward to reading this book "designed for beginners". It is, sort of, but is very succinct and I don't think that it would give real beginners that much confidence to start out. It only has two liberally illustrated pages on tools and materials. For the brushes it gives the main types but no indication of sizes or what might be a basic set for beginners. Of course that is highly personal but beginners need help. The two pages on painting techniques is more useful and shows the effects of these techniques. Colour is treated at an exceedingly basic level but his hint of producing a 'palette spectrum' for each painting is very helpful. It would be more so if he explained what he meant by premixes - "squeeze out lots of paint and premixes". Are these premixed colours of paint, the non primary colours, or some mix of paint and thinners for a basic wash on the canvas? I think that he might mean what he later calls "pre-tubed color (such as Naples yellow..." (page 11). The bulk of the book comprises a breakdown of stages, usually three, to a final painting. He provides a list of colours that he used for each, his colour palette, and some good tips. The final paintings are, of course, excellent. Overall the book has a lot to encourage budding artists who want to paint better sea- and landscapes but I don't fell that it is really designed for beginners I'm afraid. Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for an advance copy of this e-book in exchange for my honest review.

The book is really helpful providing a lot of information about which tools are needed, painting techniques and methods with color combination. The paintings here are extremely beautiful as well.

This book is primarily for people who already know how to paint or know the basics and how to improve further. Definitely a book you'll keep going to even just to look at the stunning arts.

Also I definitely have to up my painting game to be able to even get close to this.

Painting: Land & Sea is a good book for beginners or for a class setting. There is some good information and advice.

"Painting: Land & Sea" is a short art instruction book providing tips on how to paint seascapes and landscapes with oil paints. The book briefly talked about tools, oil painting techniques, and color theory before moving on to the studies and demonstrations. While the author did show three steps and then the finished painting, the brief instructions were often tips about creating specific effects with oil paint rather than on how to paint. Which means I got some interesting tips out of it, and so will a beginner, but this might not be what a complete "tell me every move" beginner is looking for.

There were a lot of good tips on how to use certain color combinations and contrasts to create certain visual effects. He also talked about things to consider when painting and why you should do things in a certain order and why. The author's method is to paint in the basic shapes and tones using a neutral color, then add colors and details on top of that base layer. There were several studies (sky, wave, rock, snow) along with tips on painting those elements. The 11 demonstrations covered several sea waves against rocks or cliffs, sunset and shorelines, trees in fields, and forest scenes as well as a mountain scene, sand dunes, and fall leaves on a forest floor. Overall, I'd recommend this book to those interested in color tips and learning to paint sea and landscapes, but I wouldn't recommend it to complete beginners.

This book has a great breakdown of painting techniques.
The author helps you to mix and choose brush types.
The book is great for beginners or more advanced artists.

A lovely little book full of ideas regarding the use of colour, setting scenes and examples of painting land and/or sea compositions. It isn't a "paint by numbers" but a book that allows you to be creative.

"Painting: Land & Sea," by Vernon Kerr is a beautiful and informative introduction to painting landscapes and other nature paintings using oil paints to create realistic paintings that Bob Ross would be proud of.

The book is another chapter in a long list of art books published by Walter Foster Publishing explaining detailed "how-to" instructions for beginner painters and other artists trying to expand their repertoire. Like many good art books, Kerr starts at the beginning with materials and tools, he moves on to basic techniques and the color wheel and then he gets down to the nitty gritty with various studies.

From clouds to waves to rocks and snow, the early-on studies help forming a basis of each painting. Then moving into the intricacies of the other elements of the painting is where Kerr spends the majority of his time. I found the instructions to be clear and easy to follow. The painting examples were beautiful and inspiring. There was a lot of depth in this book and every other page had expert tips to keep in mind.

I feel like this is a valuable volume for any painter's library to foster continue growth as an artist. I definitely recommend it.

I received this eBook free of charge from Quarto Publishing Group - Walter Foster via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. I did not receive any fiscal compensation from either company for this review and the opinions expressed herein are entirely my own.

I found this painting book helpful. However, I would have liked more specific instructions. For instance; the author provides a list of colors used in each painting but does not give an explanation on where to use them in the painting. The artist suggests using colors other than white when painting the foam in ocean waves. It would be more helpful to give specific instructions. From the photo, it looks like alizarin is used for the highlights on top of the waves and blue at the bottom of the wave, yellow and green used in the center. It is easier for me to remember and apply new techniques if the author explains how the color helps you achieve your desired effect.

I liked the artists painting style. Many of the landscapes had areas of bright pastel, almost metallic colors. The artist used unrealistic colors to create a very lifelike painting. While this style is beautiful, I think it is more difficult for a novice artist to get good results.

I received this galley from NetGalley.

I’m new to oil painting and found a lot of useful tips and information in this book. The book is laid out nicely and contains many nice example paintings to go along with the detailed information. This is a great reference book with lots of good color information that I’ll refer to often as I paint.

For an intermediate painter. Guides are thorough and easy to follow. There is a breakdown at the beginning in regards to materials, etc, so an advanced beginner could also benefit from the book.

The version I have is called 'Painting: Land and Sea' and is I believe a reissue of the above book. It's short, and not for beginners, but does contain useful information particularly about which colours to use in seascapes and landscapes.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy.

Not what I expected at all. I thought that it would explain how to draw land and sea. However, this was about colours which should be used to achieve the best results.
Don't get me wrong, this was spectacular to look at, and when I get better at drawing landscape, I may return to this to better understand the colours. But this is not at all for beginners; I would say that this is pushing the lines of advanced.
But anyway, I'm going to have a look at it again, because those paintings were just too gorgeous.

Good overall step by step instructions but wanted a bit more variety of pictures and paintings to get more practice. Good explanation of colours and how to use them. Would recommend.