Realistic Abstracts: Painting abstracts based on what you see

I am an accomplished painter, using mainly oil and watercolor, and have been trying to find a way to free and loosen my tehcnique and approach, and get away from being too close to reality. This book is exactly what I was looking for. Contracrary to the 2 negative reviews, the book gives extremely helpful, clear, concise, and complete advice on ALL important aspects that would contribute to achieving successful results. Throughout my life as a painter, I have bought many art books (some of them on how to loosen your style and hand), but I find this one to be the most helpful and inspirational. I was negatively surprised by the comments of the reviewer who gave 1 star to the book when she said that all the points and advices covered in the book could be found in other books, as if the author was to invent a new magical formula, pill, or potion in art that could help artists instantly imporve their work!!!! The book also includes an impressive amount of outstanding work by other artists, ranging from almost abstract to almost realistic work. This greatly helps the reader to get a wide spectrum of possible approaches to compare and choose from. I only refgret that the book did not give a brief bio on each of them. Though the book focuses on watercolor and acrylic, the same principles, rules, and approaches it provides could be applied to all other media. Finally, the quality of the reproduction of all paintings is outstanding, making it a great pleasure to admire all the works reproduced. If you are trying to change and loosen your style, this is THE book to buy and read!!

This is a great book - if you already know a little about painting. To have a real grasp on what you'll find here, you should know the "how-to-hold's" and "what-to-do's" of painting already. But anyway, this is a book for learning the basics for abstract painting, their general concepts and more or less the way to aggregate these ideas on your own art work. I really recommend it for the begginers on abstract and not-so-begginers for painting. Just remembering that to do your own abstract, you'll have to simplify and digest reality on your own way. So, even if there were a utterly good book for teaching that, it wouldn't teach you how to do it at all. You will always have to learn it by yourself. And this book here leaves enough space for grow as it is necessary, and explains the basics as deep as it is needed. And the pictures are inspiring as good as the book is complete.

Beautiful book with great instructions and exampels...worth the money

Kees van Aalst has written an accessible, understandable and very informative guide to painting watercolor abstracts. Essential principles and elements for successful artwork are fully explained and the book is profusely illustrated with inspirational examples and step-by-step guides. Beginner that I am, I've actually picked up the paint brush and created my first abstract. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

This is a really useful, thoughtful book, with a lot of varied examples, and good ideas to think about. My mind still gets in the way of my painting, so I need to see how others approach the process of abstraction of an image. It's not rocket science, but you have to get out of your standard approach, or you'll just keep doing the same thing over and over. I want to work on abstraction because I don't believe you can capture the essence of a place or thing unless you are willing to abstract the literal appearance. This guy shows lots of intermediate workups, including lots of examples of working with negative space, and shares a lot of beautiful works by other artists. Most of the works look like watercolors, but they're colorful, dynamic, and interesting watercolors—nothing you couldn't do in any other painting or drawing medium.

Like other reviewers, I bought this book because I loved the painting on the cover and wanted to learn how to paint like that. I'd hoped for more, but I personally found the painting on the cover to be the single most beautiful and inspiring of the bunch in this book. However, the principles are sound. The author offers very ordered steps with accompanying progression paintings to aid in successfully creating this style of painting and, while the paintings aren't amazing, they aren't bad and are apt as illustrations of each step. Though there is a formula involved, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing; especially for someone treading into unfamiliar territory, as it offers a firm direction with enough flexibility to experiment later when one feels comfortable. Again, it isn't a mind-blowing read. It's a solid book, not amazing. I didn't find it jam-packed with inspiration, but it does provide some good ideas that I know I will be trying in a new painting and an old one I want to resuscitate, so that is worth something and I am going to keep it. You may want to check this book out at the public library before purchasing in order to verify for yourself that it is one you want to add to your home library.

Kees Van Aalst's book is an excellent way to get acquainted with realistic abstractism. It has step by step instructions on how to paint R. A. with easy to follow watercolor pictures and a selection of reference paintings from which to choose. It's 160 pages and is a great addition to my art book collection.

There is finally an Artist that wants to explain the true aspect of this type of painting without pressure of the technical "mumbo jumbo"!!! Kees wants you to plan out the painting...he says "A painting is a picture about something, not a picture of something". Where have I been? This makes so much more sense to me when approaching the canvas that I have to break out in laughter, I am so relieved to have read this! Lots of pics and even some exercises if you will! Thank you Kees Van Aalst! I appreciate your professional point of view, I appreciate you sharing your knowledge. I am looking for future improvement in painting and a new found joy of doing it thanks to this book "Realistic Abstracts"! Excellent read as well!

Molto bello , interessante tecnica da provare per gli amanti dell'acquarello ! Soprattutto come con alcune macchie di colore si ha la suggestione di intravedere certe forme e paesaggi inventati

Bought for inspiration. Fits the bill perfectly. Excellent quality photographs of other artist's works. I look and read the contents often. It would make an excellent coffee table book.

Excellent little book. Some great inspirational ideas. Well worth it.

水彩画で風景画に挑戦中の妻が、絵画教室の先生から貸してもらって気に入り、手元に置きたいというので購入しました。水彩で風景を描くときに、すべての細部まで写実的に描写せず、主部以外の背景などをいかに省略して表現するかのヒントがいろいろと見つかると言って重宝しています。

Très bon livre illustrant comment pratiquer l'aquarelle de façon plus "lâchée".De nombreux exemples permettant de mettre en pratique une façon plus contemporaine de peindre à l'aquarelle. Très bien expliqué, très bien documenté, un excellent outil de travail!