Oil Painting Secrets from a Master

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By Linda Cateura (David Leffel)

This book is a classic you will probably have heard or read some praise for it. The "Master" is not Cateura, it is David Leffel. There are many beautiful still life, protrait, and figurative paintings shown and discussed. Leffel gives very strong, opinionated advice (maybe not "secrets", but worth reading.) The current edition is a 144 page paperback Watson-Guptill publication. The book has stood up fairly well since it was written in 1984; the advice did not become dated. My only concern is "what are those white splotches on his paintings?" I don't know if it is his style or just the plates that were produced at the time...

The Simple Secret to Better Painting

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The subtitle for the book is “How to immediately improve your art with this one rule of composition. What is the secret? What is that one rule? Albert gets right to the point and thankfully reveals the secret in the introduction. Never make any two intervals the same. This is an excellent North Light Book. It builds the case for the one rule and explains its application quite well.

Since Albert is the Editorial Director of North Light Art Instruction books, he uses painting examples from his stable of artist/authors. This is clever cross marketing, but can be forgiven because the examples paintings are good looking and demonstrate the ideas quite well. The discussion of applying this “one rule” is thoroughly illustrated including some corollary guidelines thrown in like using mostly, some and a bit for color and value.