Jan 17
Glyn Macey's enthusiasm for his subject, his medium and his dynamic style of working and vibrant colours can only inspire and encourage you to try something similar yourself. His second, this book is as much about that way of working as it is about painting in acrylics itself. This is a sensible approach, as to restrict such a performer to dry schoolroom lessons would be to miss the point entirely. That said, you can learn a lot working from this. The exercises and demonstrations are all there but the layout tells you immediately to prepare for something different. There are no serried ranks of only-slightly-different-stage illustrations. Artworks, ideas and colours all leap of every page. It's a total immersion, but some careful design work keeps everythign clear.
* The Artist *
This book is great for those new to acrylics, total beginners and those looking to learn more and improve. It's opening pages excited me from the start, great simple mark making techniques followed by fantastic ideas to help me loosen upand not be afraid of the blank white canvas or paper. Very happy
* Connie Keirnan *
Summer 2016
Popular and dynamic tutor, Glyn Macey's new book on acrylics concentrates on painting sea, sky land and life- everything in fact! Described as a 'creative adventure', Glyn uses innovative ideas with the medium to encourage the reader to explore their own creativty, pushing the materials to their limits and using serendipity to their advantage. The book is packed full of inspirational ideas, techniques to try and advice on how to develop your own painting style.
* The Leisure Painter *
Subtitled 'How To Paint Sea, Sky, Land and Life' not only shows you how to paint those subjects but also how to find your own creative style. It includes many examples of Glyn's work plus techniques, ideas and guidance to enable you to pick up paint and brushes and get painting. Discover how he works - details of brushwork, ideas on colour, tone, capturing mood, texture, mark-making, techniques, suggestions and ideas. See the world around you and learn how to paint your world. Use the techniques to help develop your own creative style and response to the elements to produce unique paintings. In this book you are not copying, nor following step-by-step images to produce the same painting as everyone else, you are being a creative painter. There are demonstrations plus alternative ideas included that will help you to interpret the world around you. Highly recommended.
* Karen Platt -yarnsandfabrics.co.uk *
There's what amounts to a neologism in the subtitle to this: "How to paint sea, sky, land and life". That's right, "life" - not nature, animals or portraits, just life. This is a clue to the style of the book, and to Glyn's work, which is itself full of vitality, like the man himself. I said quite a lot about this in relation to his first book.
Flick quickly through the pages here and you get the feeling more of a magazine than a book. You'll see images, features and stand-outs rather than the more usual progression of projects, exercises and demonstrations. Delve further, though, and they're all there; it's just that the design brings Glyn's own dynamism to the pages. I must say I like it and, if this is a new dimension in the layout of books, you can say you saw it here first. That doesn't mean that I want all future publications to be about appearance rather than content, form rather than function, just that it works here and I think it's worth following up.
Glyn is a passionate ambassador for his medium - not as an end in itself, but for what it can do - and this is a book that takes paint, brushes and supports by the scruff of their necks and explores their possibilities. Although Glyn is more or less a representational painter, it's images rather than depictions that are his stock in trade and it's the colours, tones, shades and brushwork that convey the subject rather than detailed observation. That's not to say that he doesn't observe at all: distillations only come from intimate understanding.
So, in sum, this isn't a book about how to paint, it's a book about how to paint. In the immortal words of Captain Beefheart: get me? What I mean is that this is a celebration of both painting and of acrylics. It's about understanding your subject and feeling passionate about painting it. It's about exploration, not least in the challenges it presents, such as "What next" and "What else could you do" that take each demonstration beyond its normal confines. Every stage is a jumping-off point for something else, every successful exercise a challenge for the next one and the journey is never complete. It's an exhilarating, thrilling ride and the joy is that there may be no safety net.
* Artbookreview *
