Here is the most comprehensive book ever published on the technique of painting in acrylic, with over 400 illustrations, including 34 step-by-step demonstrations in color and a total of 250 color plates. Every major acrylic technique is demonstrated and each step is shown in color, with precise instructions that tell you how to execute every painting operation.

The Acrylic Painting Book begins by showing you the essential brushes and other equipment, then recommends your palette of colors, and explains how to set up for painting. Next, famed artist Rudy de Reyna shows you the basic ways to apply acrylic color: opaque, transparent, scumbling, and drybush. Then he shows you how to put these techniques to work in 13 demonstration paintings: six simple still lifes of fruit, vegetables and common household objects; an old tree; flowers; three landscapes of summer, autumn, and winter; and male and female portrait heads. You learn special effects such as spattering, sponge painting scratching, and textural painting; three ways to correct an acrylic painting; and how to varnish and frame finished pictures.

The book then turns to landscape painting, first reviewing how the basic techniques are applied to common landscape elements such as trees and skies. Next, de Reyna paints 11 demonstration pictures of popular landscape subjects: a deciduous tree, an evergreen, an autumn forest, a meadow, mountains, hills, the desert, a stream, ice and snow, a cloudy sky, and a sunset. You will then find advice on selecting and composing landscape subjects; lighting; high and low key; the three-value system; studying rock, cloud, and tree forms; and aerial perspective.