It is never too late to pick up a brush and rekindle your love for painting. My favorite style is fast and loose, with a hot pink underpainting and a flat brush, so this book was a wonderful addition to my library.
Modern Still Life: From Fruit Bowls to Disco Balls — A Beginner’s Guide to Painting Fun, Fresh Still Lifes in Oil and Acrylic by Sari Shryack
This is a very serious book: its theoretical content makes for a very nice contrast with its fast and loose strokes and loving use of color and subject matter. The theory is by far the most up-to-date I’ve had the chance to see, and you will find yourself going back and forth between the exercises and the instructional part.
You can start from scratch—or wherever/whenever you stopped painting—and launch straight into the modern still-life exercises proposed in the book. On Sari Shryack’s Instagram, @not_sorry_art, you can find additional exercises as well.
A consummate teacher, her first advice is never to let go of curiosity and to embrace your mistakes, as they are an essential part of the learning process.
Her value studies and color mixing tips, her fresh and bold palette, the fun objects she chooses, and the truism that you don’t need to draw perfectly to be a good painter are all very entertaining.
Her foray into oil paints made me want to move out of my apartment and start using oils again, and, in all, it was a great addition to my summer reading list.
Use sheets of paper, make them smallish to work fast, and never hesitate to throw away an exercise and start another—in short, have fun painting!
Modern Still Life: From Fruit Bowls to Disco Balls is available on June 18, 2024
Publisher: Walter Foster Publishing
Pages: Trade Paperback 144 Pages
ISBN: 9780760388730
