In early February, I found “Learn to Paint in Acrylics in 50 Small Paintings” by Mark Nelson on Amazon, and purchased it. I consider it a mixed bag — you can check out the reviews on Amazon, if you’re interested, about its negative points — all I will say publicly on a blog is that it’s the book that got me to pick up a paintbrush and actually PAINT! (I did NOT do all 50 paintings, but I rolled along on a dozen or so, some of which are shown below.)

The black, white and gray moonlight painting is the first one I did, following along in the book. As a nocturne of sorts, it is either highly stylized or something only a novice would do. Titanium White and Mars Black are heavily used in almost every painting, something that the typical art teacher suggests you avoid. But, again, this artist may be deliberately stylistic.