It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note,
the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment. John Constable

I decided to begin painting landscapes in earnest this past summer, and challenged myself to complete fifty landscape paintings by the end of 2021. To date, I have completed twenty-five, mostly in watercolor and acrylic, but two in oil. I have enjoyed the project so much that my 2022 New Year’s Resolution List will have to include another landscape challenge: twenty-five seascape and twenty-five cityscape paintings.

The books pictured above and listed below have served as wonderful sources of inspiration. I found most of them in the library or online. I like buying used books, especially art books. New art books are beautiful, but very expensive, and if they are too precious, I tend not to open them. So my second personal challenge has been to find instructive art books in the various used-book sales that the surrounding libraries and bookstores have, and never to spend more than $10 on any book.

1. Masters of 17th Century Dutch Landscape Painting by Peter C. Sutton (Exhibition catalog)
2. Turner In The North by David Hill
3. Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wyeth byBeth Venn and Adam D. Weinberg
4. American Watercolors From The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Forward by John K. Howat
5. Jean-François Millet by Alexandra R. Murphy
6. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces at the Musée D’Orsay, Forward by Michel Laclotte
7. Joan Eardley by Fiona Pearson
8. The Age of American Impressionism, Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, ed. Judith A. Barter
9. Baltic Light, Early Open-Air Painting in Denmark and North Germany by Catherine Johnston, et. al
10. The Hudson River School, The landscape of Bierstadt, Cole, Church, Durand, Heade by Louise Minks
11. Bonus: Corot by Jean Leymarie