This fully illustrated guide to oil painting has been arranged to identify and offer solutions to problems inherent in the painting process. Line drawings are used to illustrate errors that may later affect the entire painting, and other sections of the book cover the essential details painters should know before they begin to paint. The text explains how compositional elements of shape, size and colour can convey either visual confusion or harmony, depending on how they are used. The author explains the composition of a good oil painting by taking a simple portrait through five mature solutions and by showing the day-to-day development of two more complex works. Colleen Browning, a member of the National Academy, has exhibited her work at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She lectures at the National Academy and the City College of New York.