Complete Artist’s Manual: The Definitive Guide to Materials and Techniques for Painting and Drawing. Simon Jennings

       INTRODUCTION

       Renoir once observed that ‘painting isn’t just daydreaming, it is primarily a manual skill, and one has to be a good workman’. Too often it is forgotten that painting is a craft as well as an art – and a difficult craft to master, at that.

       At first sight, dipping a brush into paint and applying it to a surface seems easy enough. But there are traps for the unskilled: an inadequately prepared support may warp or buckle; the wrong support can adversely affect the way the paint handles; ill-chosen colours turn muddy when mixed together; poor-quality or fugitive colours will fade in time. By understanding the materials and techniques at his or her disposal, the artist can avoid such pitfalls and increase the pleasures of making art.

       In recent decades, art schools have tended to dismiss basic skills and techniques as ‘irrelevant’, and they have been neglected in favour of ‘freedom of expression’. In so doing, tutors have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, for without a thorough technical grasp of materials and methods, students of art have no real freedom to express their ideas – it is like asking someone with no knowledge or concept of grammar or syntax to write a novel.

       This is not to imply that a good craftsperson is necessarily a good artist. Manual dexterity and technical know-how are meaningless if an artist’s work is deficient in thought and feeling. Along with a learning hand, one must develop a seeing eye – and for many people, this is the most difficult part. In the desire to produce a ‘finished’ picture, the impatient student often overlooks the two things that are fundamental to all art: drawing and observation. It is vital to train your eyes by really looking at the world around you, and to keep sketching and drawing all the time. When you draw what you see, you develop your powers of observation and analysis. Your mind absorbs many details – for instance, the way light and shadow create form, how tone and colour alter with distance – enabling you to draw a surprising amount from memory and from imagination.

       The purpose of this manual, then, is twofold. First, by providing an in-depth examination of the skills and techniques involved, not only in painting and drawing but also in preparing a support and in choosing and mixing colours, it endeavours to encourage a pride in the craftsmanship needed to produce a work of art. Second, by using a wide range of work by respected professional artists as a source of inspiration, it aims to help you develop your personal vision of the world and to find your own voice in interpreting that vision.