Artists Photo Reference: Buildings & Barns (Artist's Photo Reference)

Every artist faces the difficulty of finding and taking good reference photos. In this book, photographer and artist Gary Greene captures an incredible range of architectural subjects, enabling artists to incorporate them into their own work while saving time and money. A variety of homes, shop fronts, railway stations, barns, school houses, churches, bridges and towers are included - with hundreds of detailed photographs that capture the spirit and character of these subjects, ranging from weathered and rustic to unusual and charming. Six step-by-step demonstrations show artists how to incorporate the featured reference photos into their own work Each demonstration focuses on a different medium, including oil, pastel, coloured pencil, watercolour, acrylic, and mixed media.

Accomplished artist and photographer Gary Greene has collected a comprehensive gallery of color photographs of barns, houses, buildings, churches, bridges, and other landmarks and architectural details in Artist's Photo Reference: Buildings & Barns. The intense, rich saturation of the structures is captured in bright natural light and through views designed to work within and complement landscape composition. The book, which forms a unique pictorial record of a vanishing America, is flush with variations on general themes, such as classical revival, Tudor, and southwestern in the "Houses" section. Each reference section contains a complete step-by-step demonstration by contributing artists employing various media, such as a pastel composition of a stately white farmhouse set between a dreamy blue April sky and riotous red and yellow tulips, or an imposing Victorian mansion whose complex architectural details are precisely delineated in ink, watercolor, and colored pencil. Greene also describes how to go into the field and make your own reference photos without spending a great deal of money. This book will appeal to artists who enjoy painting and drawing rural scenes or who wish to infuse a bit of idealistic realism into their landscape compositions. --Mary Ribesky