Composition of Outdoor Painting

Well it’s an impressive reference and fun to flip through, it might come in handy when I start painting again. But it is comprehensive!

This book is dense with insights. Composition has been a mystery to me as I can tell when it's working in a picture, but it's been like a magic trick because I didn't know how to compose a picture effectively myself. This book tells you how, and the informal thumbnail sketches are really useful as they illustrate the compositions described in the text. This book helps me understand the composition part of why I might particularly like a painting even when the artist's technical style might not appeal to me. I am enjoying this book and finding it valuable, and it's all new to me.

Please remember in print there's no inflection of voice. Not trying to be a jerk BUT, lots of people complained about the lack of color examples. I am nobody, but my understanding of all two dimensional art is 1 composition and perspective 2 light and shadow and 3 get your values right. All of these are addressed extremely competently! This is not a coffee table book. This is for those who have DEDICATED themselves to art! Here are successful paintings, from various artists, broken down as greyscale values for you! Invaluable! I live in Florida and our stormy days are an ugly gray skies! I grew up in Wisconsin, and storms there were bruised plum, indigo, and some pinks. The clouds were so heavy and close, a child could touch them. So, where are YOU? Are you in Chinese yellow smog? Brown / gray LA smog? Stark Mexican sun? Arid desert? Steely blue/ gray English countryside? That's where YOUR color palette comes in! I agree with another reviewer. This is the Bible! I hope this helps you to see the immense value of this book! The principals stand up for every subject( flowers, portraits, city scapes, seaside villages nestled in bluffs, superheroes looking down on menacing cities...) The $50 was painful, but well spent and completely worth it!

Small but mighty. Wonderfully full of good info about painting or drawing a well composed piece. The study on values is invaluable. Well worth the piddling amount it cost.

Amazing book! Highly recommend for landscape artists of all levels!

As a beginning oil painter, I find this book on composition very helpful. For me, it is much easier to read and to absorb than Carlson's similar text. I gave it four stars not because of the content, but due to an unfortunate lack of editing. Numerous obvious spelling and grammatical errors detract from the seriousness and passion of Payne's words.

Very simply, if you are learning to paint landscapes (Watercolor, Acrylics or Oils) this book is a classic. Almost every serious art teacher of landscape painting will suggest this book by Edgar Payne on Composition. Payne has a zillion small thumbnails of different ways an artist can compose their paintings. New painters like me thought - well you just start painting a scene ---WRONG! Buy it!!

Must have for artists composition

Great information

Book has been around for years but still a classic with plenty of diagrams and discussions about landscape painting. (There is also a fair bit of reading involved along with the illustrations) Payne demonstrates different patterns of composition using black and white sketches throughout. A tad expensive for it's compact size but well worth it!

tutto andato per il meglio, venditore consigliato

I bought this book for a friend as it was recommended online, and now I have had feedback. They absolutely love it. Not sure when it was first published but my artistic friend thinks its 'the best book' she has received for her artistic hobby.

This book was originally written back in a day when dry, and wordy writing for instruction was the standard but if you get past this, the information itself and Paynes illustrated examples of the many compositional themes that have existed for so long is worth every penny this book costs and more. The book is truly a gem.