The Landscape Painter’s Workbook is the definitive practical guide to traditional techniques and the fundamentals of landscape painting. Written by distinguished landscape painter and instructor Mitchell Albala, this richly informative and artistically illustrated volume guides you step-by-step through his approach to the genre, from establishing a composition using basic shapes to applying tried-and-true color strategies.

It contains all-new lessons, practical exercises, and special topics, such as:

• The Complementary Color Strategy: What are the three aspects of color contrast that guide a painting's strategy?
• Notan: Explore this specialized compositional study, which identifies the underlying shapes and patterns of a composition.
• Picture Formats: How does the type of image—horizontal, vertical, or square—affect composition? What are their advantages and disadvantages?
• Color Grouping: A full chapter documents this specialized practice, which helps maintain harmony by organizing colors into a limited number of groups.
• Composition: An in-depth review of variability, movement, and active negative space, with illustrations that map movement in each example.
• Studio Exercises: Instead of demonstrations showing how the author paints, the Landscape Painter’s Workbook includes 10 skill-building exercises to help you work on the essential lessons on your own.

With examples of works by 45 contemporary landscape painters—over 80 paintings in total—in oils, acrylics, pastels, and watercolors, the lessons are suitable for all mediums. Each painting is thoroughly analyzed in terms of shape, composition, or color, with supporting diagrams, small images, and photographs.

The Landscape Painter’s Workbook inspires and informs artists of all levels, from aspiring to established, on how to successfully capture the grandeur and mood of the natural world.

The For Artists series skillfully guides and teaches artists at all skill levels who want to develop their classical drawing and painting skills and create realistic and representational art.