Sea & Sky in Acrylics

It's difficult for many painters to achieve realistic looking skies and water. Dave demonstrates how to paint both so that you can refine your skills. Simple techniques that any can follow. Take a closer look at waves and cloud formations, I really enjoyed these two sections. There are three step-by-step projects and examples of finished work. Discover how to add a little drama to your acrylic paintings.

* Karen Platt- yarnsandfabrics.co.uk *

Few artists can resist the temptation to introduce a bit of drama when it comes to painting the sea, and Dave White is no exception. It is, after all, a bit boring if you just paint flat calm and there’s nothing like a good storm to get the juices flowing. Add a nice ripe sunset and you’ll be getting through your dark greens, rich blues and deep reds like there’s no tomorrow!

It’s perhaps unfair to start a review like that as this is one of the most thorough and useful books on painting seascapes that I’ve seen in a long time. Dave White is more than sound on achieving that tricky balance between solidity and fluidity in breaking waves and I particularly like his trick of using gulls that skim the surface (as they do) to give scale. His clouds are similarly light, fluffy and ethereal without looking half-hearted or like clumps of cotton wool stuck onto a Cerulean wash.

For all that, it’s the drama that’ll strike you on a quick flick through, but you shouldn’t let it put you off. The sea is dramatic and, as I hinted earlier, it should be. Some of the treatments here are a bit over the top for me but, equally, they might be just what you want. In terms of technique and presentation, though, this one’s hard to beat.

* Artbookreview.net *

January 2016

Painting the sea is one of the greatest challenges for the artist. Constantly in motion, it has far more substance than other types of water that simply flow, or are completely still. To freeze a moment in time while still maintaining that sense of fluidity is not an easy thing to do. Almost all books on painting the sea tend at some point to be a trifle dramatic, and this is no exception. Dave white includes night-time scenes, sunsets and the last rays breaking through backlit clouds, even a helicopter rescue. On waves, spray, translucency and the rather neat trick of including low flying gulls to provide scale, Dave is solidly sound. There’s plenty of variety demonstrations and good solid instruction.

* The Artist *

Living near the coast in Hampshire, Dave White finds constant inspiration from the sea and skies around him, and in his latest book, sea and sky in acrylics, he shares with us some of the essential elements off of capturing a subject that is constantly moving and changing. Using his preferred medium of acrylics he opens the book with a brief description of the materials you will need, then moves swiftly on to colour and the specific colours you will need to follow the demonstrations in this book, including colour mixes for sky, sea, rocks and beaches for example. The first part concentrates on the sea, describing the techniques to create the rising and falling waves, show wind direction, ripples splashes and reflections. The middle section looks at the sky; clouds, moods and sunsets; then the rest of the book is devoted to projects – a beach panorama, a sunset and waves crashing on the rocks – all with excellent step-by-step diagrams and clear photography.

* The Leisure Paint