---
product_id: 2741222
title: "Portrait Painting Atelier: Old Master Techniques and Contemporary Applications"
price: "KD 12.74"
currency: KWD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/2741222-portrait-painting-atelier-old-master-techniques-and-contemporary-applications
store_origin: KW
region: Kuwait
---

# Portrait Painting Atelier: Old Master Techniques and Contemporary Applications

**Price:** KD 12.74
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Portrait Painting Atelier: Old Master Techniques and Contemporary Applications
- **How much does it cost?** KD 12.74 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.kw](https://www.desertcart.com.kw/products/2741222-portrait-painting-atelier-old-master-techniques-and-contemporary-applications)

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## Why This Product

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## Description

The art of portraiture approached its apex during the sixteenth century in Europe with the discovery of oil painting when the old masters developed and refined techniques that remain unsurpassed to this day. The ascendance of nonrepresentational art in the middle of the twentieth century displaced these venerable skills, especially in academic art circles. Fortunately for aspiring artists today who wish to learn the methods that allowed the Old Masters to achieve the luminous color and subtle tonalities so characteristic of their work, this knowledge has been preserved in hundreds of small traditional painting ateliers that persevered in the old ways in this country and throughout the world. Coming out of this dedicated movement, Portrait Painting Atelier is an essential resource for an art community still recovering from a time when solid instruction in art technique was unavailable in our schools. Of particular value here is a demonstration of the Old Masters’ technique of layering paint over a toned-ground surface, a process that builds from the transparent dark areas to the more densely painted lights. This method unifies the entire painting, creating a beautiful glow that illuminates skin tones and softly blends all the color tones. Readers will also find valuable instruction in paint mediums from classic oil-based to alkyd-based, the interactive principles of composition and photograph-based composition, and the anatomy of the human face and the key relationships among its features. Richly illustrated with the work of preeminent masters such as Millet, Géricault, and van Gogh, as well as some of today’s leading portrait artists—and featuring seven detailed step-by-step portrait demonstrations— Portrait Painting Atelier is the first book in many years to so comprehensively cover the concepts and techniques of traditional portraiture.

Review: Old Masters - User Friendly - There have been volumes written on the way the Old Masters approached their painting process, their techniques, the limitations of the materials at hand, and the amazing portraits they were able to produce. With the panoply of paints, equipment, mediums and surfaces that are available to the artist today, it is still not clear how we can strive to develop the beautiful, sensitive, glowing results of these Old Masters - until now. Ms. Brooker does this in a well written, 'user friendly' manner. She starts with the premise that as artists, we have to take an organized, intellectual approach to our painting (a novel concept considering what we were exposed to in the 60's and 70's). She launches us on this path of an organized thought process by addressing the basics of studio practices (organized palette = orgainzed thinking)and even includes a review of the preparation of quality surfaces and their importance to producing quality paintings (a part I found to be very useful). Ms. Brooker then addresses the use of color and pallette management, toned grounds and paint application to prepare us for the painting processes. Before diving into the hands on work of painting the portrait, she provides an abreviated look at the normally bone dry subject of facial anatomy. This is enough to whet the appetite of those who would like more detail while stasfying the basic needs of the majority of those interested in portraiture. Instead of pages on the underlying anatomy of the 4 key features of the face, she walks us through a process of observing the expressive nature of each followed by practical techniques for painting them. I found these very helpful in reassessing how I approach the painting eyes and nose. The final two sections on the process and associated demos of painting portraits, give the reader excellent examples of how one can begin to achieve result akin to those of the Old Masters. Ms. Brooker takes through the preparation of the ground, blocking-in, underpainting, paint applicaiton, finishing with the judicious use of glaze to bring forth the glowing life force we seek in our paintings. This book clearly demonstrate Ms. Brooker's thesis that a thoughtful, dare we say intellectual, approach to portraiture is essential. This, coupled with being able to take advantage of the concious choice of ground, underpainting and transparent nature of paint, will allow the reader / painter to begin the realization of the desired optical impacts we so admire in the work of the Old Masters.
Review: I will be referring back to this book often. - This book is very informative...like a complete course in portrait painting. The information can be applied to oil paintings other than just portraiture. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in fine tuning their skills in oil painting.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #91,299 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #20 in Art Portraits #252 in Painting (Books) #4,557 in Reference (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 658 Reviews |

## Images

![Portrait Painting Atelier: Old Master Techniques and Contemporary Applications - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71GR+EOhCWL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Old Masters - User Friendly
*by J***D on March 23, 2010*

There have been volumes written on the way the Old Masters approached their painting process, their techniques, the limitations of the materials at hand, and the amazing portraits they were able to produce. With the panoply of paints, equipment, mediums and surfaces that are available to the artist today, it is still not clear how we can strive to develop the beautiful, sensitive, glowing results of these Old Masters - until now. Ms. Brooker does this in a well written, 'user friendly' manner. She starts with the premise that as artists, we have to take an organized, intellectual approach to our painting (a novel concept considering what we were exposed to in the 60's and 70's). She launches us on this path of an organized thought process by addressing the basics of studio practices (organized palette = orgainzed thinking)and even includes a review of the preparation of quality surfaces and their importance to producing quality paintings (a part I found to be very useful). Ms. Brooker then addresses the use of color and pallette management, toned grounds and paint application to prepare us for the painting processes. Before diving into the hands on work of painting the portrait, she provides an abreviated look at the normally bone dry subject of facial anatomy. This is enough to whet the appetite of those who would like more detail while stasfying the basic needs of the majority of those interested in portraiture. Instead of pages on the underlying anatomy of the 4 key features of the face, she walks us through a process of observing the expressive nature of each followed by practical techniques for painting them. I found these very helpful in reassessing how I approach the painting eyes and nose. The final two sections on the process and associated demos of painting portraits, give the reader excellent examples of how one can begin to achieve result akin to those of the Old Masters. Ms. Brooker takes through the preparation of the ground, blocking-in, underpainting, paint applicaiton, finishing with the judicious use of glaze to bring forth the glowing life force we seek in our paintings. This book clearly demonstrate Ms. Brooker's thesis that a thoughtful, dare we say intellectual, approach to portraiture is essential. This, coupled with being able to take advantage of the concious choice of ground, underpainting and transparent nature of paint, will allow the reader / painter to begin the realization of the desired optical impacts we so admire in the work of the Old Masters.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I will be referring back to this book often.
*by S***K on July 18, 2025*

This book is very informative...like a complete course in portrait painting. The information can be applied to oil paintings other than just portraiture. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in fine tuning their skills in oil painting.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Wonderful, full of great info
*by A***R on July 31, 2021*

This book has wonderful descriptions of how to paint like the Masters. I have learned so much and I'm only about a third of the way through. So many full high-definition pictures that it would be worth the price just for the pictures of art. But even if there were no pictures it would still be worth the price and then some. I think this book is worth an entire semester of arts school there is so much to learn I'm so much this book will teach and easy to understand and yet with in depth descriptions of why something works and how to retrieve it on a canvas. There's a whole chapter on how to prepare a canvas directly how to build one's own canvas. Then it launches into wonderful explanations of how to achieve the type of realism and clarity and oil paints. This book is truly exceptional I was surprised way better than I expected.

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*Product available on Desertcart Kuwait*
*Store origin: KW*
*Last updated: 2026-05-19*