Landscape Painting, by Alfred East A.R.A.

My mate Alan Owen recently sent me his copy of this book, which dates from 1906. It contains many gems, colour plates of East's work that I hadn't seen before, and a great deal of sheer sense - some of it a touch archaic, much reference to a "manly" approach to painting. East, knighted in 1910 and admitted to full membership of the Royal Academy in 1913, the year of his death, was one of the prime landscape painters of his day - the book contains chapters on colour, composition, painting trees, painting skies, and much else. Obviously, some of the colours he recommends are either not available today or have been superseded, so you need to make allowance for that. You'd be lucky to find an intact copy of the book nowadays - there was a 1907 reprint, and I understand there's a more modern one, which is likely to be pricey. However - there are also several downloads to the kindle or kindle app available: I can recommend searching out via our friendly Mr Google. PS - https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Landscape+Painting+by+Alfred+East+A.R.A. http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk

Well done, Dermot - I think I missed that one. I finished reading the book last night (in my hard copy) and it really is worth finding. East used Flake White, of course, the standard lead white of the day - you can still find it, but non-toxic whites would work. He also used Rose Madder - this is an interesting colour, because it's very beautiful indeed, but isn't lightfast (East refers to colours fading: he seemed to expect them to - maybe previous generations worried less about this, or maybe they didn't have a lot of choice about it). Alizarin Crimson was introduced as a more permament replacement, but actually if you read the literature, and use the paint as I once did, it isn't actually more lightfast at all, especially used with white or in thin glazes; whereas Rose Madder Genuine does indeed have a poor lightfastness rating, but it CAN be surprisingly durable in oil - not in watercolour. We've now got the quinacridone pigments,giving us Permanent Rose, known under various names. That's lightfast, and a beautiful colour too (though it depends a bit on who makes it). It hasn't quite got the subtlety of Rose Madder Genuine, even so. But when he's writing about pigments, what interested me was his reference to "French Blue": I don't know what that is, and must try researching it - I thought he might mean Ultramarine, but it seems not - he refers to that colour elsewhere; it may be he confuses the two or uses the words interchangeably, of course, but if anyone has any ideas I'd be interested to see them. http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk