Painting into the Light

If you’ve ever looked at the dazzling light effects that Jenny Aitken suffuses into her paintings, you may have wondered how she achieves it. Now, in her first book about painting into the light, “contre jour” she generously reveals her secrets.

The book reads like a friend is at your shoulder sharing their experiences, borne from years of not only painting, but teaching. This understanding of what students of light may want to know ensures that the language and topics are accessible through straightforward language and examples, clearly laid out in a way that you can dip in and out of what interests you most.

While the book focuses on painting specific subjects contre jour, (with illustrated step by step projects on her personal approach to a wide array of motifs including seascapes, skies, snow portraits, woodlands, mountains and oystercatchers) it also offers more universal painting advice around central tenets of representational art. Tips on composition and contrast, simplification, brush language, and colour perception, will serve the reader well beyond the realms of contre jour.

With practical advice on topics such as indoor studio and outdoor painting set up, how to get the most from reference photographs, and how to evaluate work, you can feel how Jenny wants you to succeed in your own painting journey. It’s like popping a knowledgeable friend on your shelf!

There are a lot of art instruction books out there, but this new one by Jenny Aitken is a gem. Having painted en plein air alongside Jenny on numerous occasions, I have always been amazed how she conjures up light, amplifying a light effect that sometimes doesn’t exist! This book explains how she does this in easy-to-understand, no nonsense terms, and this can be followed by both amateur students and seasoned professionals who want to apply these effects in their own work!

She shows in clear terms (and with excellent photos) what equipment she uses; the indoor and outdoor setup; the limited palette of colours she employs and the brushes she uses; and HOW the brushes are used.

Apart from being a very comprehensive instruction book, this is a lovely coffee-table type tome, with lots of Jenny’s beautiful paintings displayed on the pages. I thoroughly recommend it to artists of all abilities.

Contre-jour work is tricky at best and perhaps a bit specialist, but Jenny absolutely nails it. For some reason, oil painting books don’t often excite me – too worthy perhaps – but this is something else. I don’t think it’s pushing things too far to say that it’s one of the best books on painting light I’ve seen and would be worth a look even if oils are not your medium.

[…] You won’t find pages of step-by-step demonstrations – where these come, four stages suffice. What you do get are plenty of examples that can’t help but inspire and lots of practical advice. This is a book to relish.

As an experienced teacher, Jenny is able to demystify the process and provides practical guidance on how to capture light in oils – from tonal control, finding the right colour, creating atmosphere, perspective and space […]

Well illustrated techniques and detailed step-by-step demonstrations will move your oil-painting techniques forward and transform your understanding of how to capture light and colour in oils.

If you’re on a quest to capture the magical effect of light behind a subject, Jenny Aitken guides you on your journey in Painting into the Light. Known for her techniques for painting light on water, the artist-instructor shares how to create contre-jour oil paintings that glow with vibrant, atmospheric light. Via step-by-step demos and illustrated techniques for both landscapes and still lifes, Aitken covers essential topics such as mastering the illusion of space; controlling tones; creating atmospheric depth; achieving accurate colour; working indoors and en plein air; and more. Of special note is a section on how to troubleshoot and salvage tricky paintings.

At 11 inches x 8 and a half inches, this is a decent, coffee table, book size which is good as it is one to treasure, keep revisiting and enjoy.

We’ve all been on a train in the Autumn and seen the sun, low on the horizon behind the trees and how the trunks and branches seem to become thinner in front of that disk of bright light. Well, this is a book about how to capture the effects of light sources in front of the artist as opposed to the side or behind.

The authoress is a master (mistress?) of her craft. The images she creates are very beautiful and the layout of the book is designed to impart as much of her knowledge as possible to the reader.

The examples given are varied but all fall under the banner of painting into the light. Some are lyrical and could almost be backdrops from Disney’s Bambi.

Like every artistic genius, Jenny Aitken makes everything look oh, so simple. What particularly appeals is the fact that with very few brushstrokes she evokes detail which one perceives even though it is not there. This is particularly the case where figures are concerned with more than one example reminded me of Monet’s Parisian street scenes.

Other artists have painted similar and had Jenny Aitken produced work like this a century and a quarter ago, she would be remembered as a great impressionist. Well, they got there first and she uses techniques which have been around for a long time but wow, she uses them with such apparently effortless skill that I am on my hands and knees in admiration.

The book is beautifully laid out and pictures are given room to breathe. A lovely, easy read and a book to leave out and visit often. As a manual for producing art like this, I think it is unsurpassed.

Highly recommended.

Jenny Aitken is passionate about teaching painting, aiming to encourage, inform, and creatively enthuse her students. She began tutoring and demonstrating ten years ago and now runs online courses and art holidays around the UK, Italy, and France.

Since graduating in Art & Art History from Aberystwyth, she has exhibited across the UK and won numerous awards, including the Topbond Marine Award in 2022 and the RSMA Baltic Exchange Award in 2023. She was elected a full member of the RSMA in 2023.

Jenny is currently represented by several galleries, including The Harbour Gallery in Cornwall and Peter Barker Gallery in Rutland.

She is a regular contributor to The Artist magazine and an online tutor with over 25 modules on painting in oils and acrylics. She also produces shorter painting videos on YouTube.

Jenny lives in Derbyshire, near the Peak District.

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