The Oil Painting Book by Bill Creevy - A Book Review by Aidan Hickey

The Oil Painting Book was written by Bill Creevy. First published in 1994, by Watson-Guptill, it’s presented as… “a basic guide to the contemporary world of oil painting – a world that combines history and tradition with modern innovation.” It’s an ambitious proposition for a volume of 176 pages. But, it must be said, Creevy delivers in style.

He opens with “Materials and Tools”. This amounts to a survey of the entire stock of a good Art Shop. Every manufacturer of paints and brushes I’ve ever heard of is on his list. And there’s at least one that was new to me… Schmincke Mussini, a German company specializing in fine Resin-Oil-Colours.

As Creevy says, oil-painters are the inheritors of 500 years of research and experimentation. The high standards our predecessors demanded are maintained today through intense competition between the suppliers.  He surveys the output of each company, praising their strengths and subtly pointing up their occasional weaknesses.

If you’re thinking of switching to a new medium, or paint, or brush or support – and you need information in a hurry – this is the place to look.

                                                            

The bulk of the book deals with “Basic Oil Techniques”. In fairness, it goes well beyond the basics. Starting with various methods of preparatory drawing, it takes a concise look at the Wipe Out method, Alla Prima, Wet-on-wet, Dry-brush, Palette-knife painting, Impasto… ending up with a discussion of Alkyds, Oil-sticks and Water-Miscible Oils.

I particularly like the section on Glazing and Scumbling. Creevy’s description of the Grisaille Under-painting technique is as good as you’re ever likely to read, or need.

And I suspect that his list of Transparent and Opaque Colours has been photocopied many times to be pinned on studio walls.

Almost every page of The Oil Painting Book has clear photographs and well-printed reproductions of Creevy’s paintings. Curiously, however, this is the only aspect of the book that leaves me less than enthusiastic. I’d admit to liking a small study of a nude, on page 70… and a Still-life on page 71… but, if I were to see most of the other paintings in a gallery, I’d hardly pause for a better look. Yet, as presented in the book, every image provides precise illustration of a point being made in the text. Maybe this oddity is related to the book’s careful avoidance of aesthetic issues. The author, who writes very well, never offers a theory about what Art should, or might be. He’s content to teach how paintings are made… leaving the reader to decide what he/she will paint.

A man I know refused to buy The Oil Painting Book because he thought it looked too much like “a hobby manual”. That was a mistake. Undoubtedly, Creevy wrote with an amateur audience in mind. But every piece of information he offers is, or should be, included in the thought-processes of practitioners of the craft, at all levels.

This is a pleasantly unpretentious and immensely useful book.