Oil Painting Secrets From a Master

Some of the most popular art instruction books ever written have been based on student notes culled over the years from actual workshop sessions, with all their power and immediacy - and with practical, on-to-one contact between student and teacher. This is such a book. For more than two years, Linda Cateura has pursued teacher / artist David A. Leffel, notebook in hand, as he critiqued the work of students. Linda Cateura's succinct notes capture his insights, philosophy, painting hints, and general comments.

Leffel's classic, painterly, twentieth-century old master style, much in the manner of Rembrandt or Chardin, affords ample illustration of the ideas expressed - through his many paintings, details, demonstrations, and diagrams, almost all in color.

No matter what your level of ability, there is something here to apply to your own work, ideas that will cause you to rething your own ways of painting, hints to save you effort, or solutions to persistent painting problems.Linda Cateura was a literary editor of Harper's Bazaar for seven years, an associate editor of Woman's Day, and a freelance book reviewer for The New York Times and Saturday Review. She has studied at The New School, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Art Students League, where she attended David A. Leffel's classes. It was there that she wrote the notes that form the basis of this book.

David A. Leffel was born in New York City and gives workshops and demonstrations throughout the nation. His work hangs in both private and public collections, including the J.B. Speed art museum in Louisville, Kentucky, and his ideas and paintings also have been featured in many publications.