The Simple Secret to Better Painting: How to Immediately Improve Your Work With the Golden Rule of Design

Rating:
Summary: A helpful review of design/composition
Review: Composition, also called design, is the heart of painting planning; only color planning is perhaps more complex and challenging. This books contains an admirable review of most of the essential aspects of composition, including very pertinent illustrations that neatly clarity the points made in words. (I plan to take the book with me on a sketching/painting trip beginning in a few days to Yosemite and the coast of California as a quick reference to remind me of compositional points--because of these handy illustrations).
However, I must make a few critical remarks, the most important first.
All the books I have read that cover this subject--and I don't claim to have read them all, just many--fail in this way: They do not provide a systematic approach to designing a painting that incorporates all or most of the sigmificant things to remember. Tom Lynch comes close in his "Watercolor Secrets" (recommended) and his recently published "100 charts" (highly recommended). Even the august Edgar Whitney with all his dogmatic principles only hints at possible approaches covering some of his material. Margaret M. Martin "No More Wishy-Washy Watercolor" (highly recommended) does give excellent guidance on dealing with values, the most important aspect of design. But I have found no overall systematic approach that incorporates all the many things to remember. What should one do first, then next, and before this, etc? Maybe there just isn't one! But this book does not integrate all the material, I feel, as it promises.
Second, what do I mean "does not integrate"? Some of the applications of the one rule seem forced. Also, the rule winds up complicated in its application,in that the issue becomes, how do I define "intervals" within the rule "Never make any two intervals the same." What does that mean with color? Just hue? Also intensity? Etc. This book is not consistently clear. The problem frequently becomes, then, clarifying the meaning of "intervals" with each new aspect of design/composition one deals with, which can be more work--and harder to recall in the field--than just forgetting the "rule" and applying the aspects needed at any given point in planning or painting.
Albert's book is admirably ambitious but unfortunately not entirely successful in simplifying design by means of his single rule.
Nevertheless, again, because of the brilliantly instructive illustrations, the thorough coverage of the subject, and the often insightful text, this book is nevertheless highly recommended. Just don't expect the process to get that much easier.

Rating:
Summary: Throw away your rule books
Review: This book is great. Forget about learning a hundred different rules. Read this book and you've got it.