The actual item is not the issue. Arrived badly bent because of shipping packaging! By now amazon sould do better.

Susan brooker's book is a must-have for any oil painter. The author shares decades of experience with portraiture. For a self taught painter, this book clarifies many aspects which are unclear.

Portrait painting atelier is a wonderful and thorough book. Includes examples of work by an old teacher of mine, domenic cretara, among others.

It will take a few months to digest and personalize eveything in this method. Good technical tips and good esthetic advice. Good instruction and doable instruction.

If they want to pursue classical realism they would do far better with anthony ryders publications. Drawing atelier is a much better book.

Flesh ochre is not a pigment (page 39) -- it is a hue.

Brooker's paintings have good form and detail, but their painting style / technique is awful. Technical inaccuracies aside, the step-by-step demonstrations are also such disappointing specimens. Brooker sticks in weird and unnecessary objects like kit...  Read More