Welcome to my book on everything I know about painting!

The special focus is on achieving illusory, contre jour light. I am just always drawn to those elusive hazy greys and brights! order it here.

Successful contre-jour art – art that is painted looking towards the light – possesses a captivating magic. It causes the viewer to squint, with dazzling light seeming to glow from the canvas. 

The technique looks incredibly accomplished, but with renowned artist Jenny Aitken’s guidance, is surprisingly easy to achieve using oils. Known for painting sparkling light on water, Jenny delivers practical, easy-to-follow guidance for confident beginner artists onwards.

It all begins with careful observation of colour value and temperature. Painting into the Light includes information on simplification, tone, capturing accurate colour, working indoors and out, landscapes, still life, how to create atmosphere, create the illusion of space and much more all vital information to help you succeed across a range of subjects.

Through 10 step-by-step painting demonstrations and clear, illustrated methods of working, Jenny’s first book will show you how to bring every painting to life with light. A section on troubleshooting tricky paintings will show you that every painting is salvageable, but with an understanding of light and colour, it’s much more likely that you will find success the first time round.

Reviews:

“This is one of the best painting books I have bought, and I’ve bought a lot. Jenny‘s paintings are stunning, and she explains in a modest and easy to follow way how she goes about creating the compositions and light effects that underpin her work. She’s created some sections that you can follow step-by-step – it’s almost like being at a demo in one of her workshops. She makes it all look so simple, but its written: presented in a way that implies she wants you to find it simple too. She is very happy to share her techniques from the beginning to the end of creating a painting. I highly recommend this book.”

Dr Abigail Samuels

“This book is heaving with interesting and helpful content, has a lovely forward by esteemed artist David Curtis and is great value for money; it would be an excellent companion for those wanting to create better paintings and ‘to work some atmospheric magic’”

Clare Bowen