Book Review: A Hebridean Notebook by Norman Ackroyd

Norman Ackroyd is an English printmaking artist known for his aquatint landscape art. When I did a Google Image search on his art, I could barely tell the difference between his art and photographs. You can tell from his art that this guy really loves painting the coast, islands and beaches.

The artworks featured in A Herbridean Sketchbook is very different from his commercial works. This is a sketchbook that features very rough watercolour sketches and impressions of Hebrides and the ‘outlier islands’, the achipelago to the north-west of mainland Scotland.

The watercolour sketches are very loose, very fluid. They are said to be produced under difficult weather conditions. It would not be surprising though if that is the case because you really have to work very fast and loose.

So what you’ll see are large shapes blocked out by watercolour. You could see what each shape represents because of their arrangement and the colours. Even though there aren’t a lot of details, your mind should still be able to fill in the details. However, I can certainly see that this fast and loose treatment may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Check out the preview pages and you will know instantly whether you like the art style or not.

-

This review copy is provided by book seller and distributor APD Singapore (website | facebook). You can get the book from them and major bookstores in Southeast Asia.

A Hebridean Notebook is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp | Amazon.cn