The post on Richard Schmids book caused me to examine my hoard of art books, most of which will go to charity shops. But I went through them to find out which have been my favourite oil books and most used.
The ones I will definitely keep are:-
How to paint like the old masters by Joseph Sheppard
Problem solving for oil painters by Gregg Kreutz
Romantic oil painting made easy by Robert Hagan
Many other books have only been opened once, but these three have been brought out time and time again.
What favourites oily books have other members got?
Jack

Jack, Two of my favorites are ones that you've already mentioned:

How to paint like the old masters by Joseph Sheppard
Romantic oil painting made easy by Robert Hagan

I don't have the Problem solving for oil painters by Gregg Kreutz but I'll look it up.

The other books that I pull out often are:

Portraits from Life in 29 steps by John Howard Sanden and Elizabeth Sanden
Painting Beautiful Skin Tones with Color & Light by Chris Saper (Note not strictly oils but great info all around)
Mastering Color The essentials of color illustrated with oil by Vicki McMurry

The two that I pull out the most would be the Romantic Oil Painting made easy and the Portraits from Life in 29 steps.

I don't have many how-to books, more coffee-table books about individual artists, also a lot of art history books. The ones that I keep handy are:

- Techniques of the Great Masters of Art (Chartwell Books, Inc)
- Art - A New History (Paul Johnson)
- One Thousand Years of Painting (Stefano Zuffi)
- The Encyclopedia of Oil Painting Techniques (Jeremy Galton)

The great masters' techniques is quite useful; each artist has a brief bio and description, a featured painting with close up views to see texture, brushstrokes..., and a list of typical colors used by the artist.

The oil painting encyclopedia is like 2 books in one. The first half is illustrated examples of techniques listed alphabetically, the second half is organised by subject; portrait, still life, skies....with various artists' works shown to illustrate each subject.

Returning to my original post. I recall one of the first oils I completed was from joseph Sheppard's book. I tried to follow the technique of Vermeer in painting a young girl wearing a wide brimmed hat.
If I can find the painting I'll post it. I think it introduced me to the subject of presentation. To me Vermeer's presentation gave tremendous impact.

Callie, I have a whole truckload of books on history and art history. Most of the ones you mentioned I don't have... yet. Hmmm more books I'm going to have to look those up. I started adding my books to the google books library because I have a tendency to forget what books I have. I just started today so this is just a drop in the bucket. Jack has inspired me to get organized with my books.

Here's the link:
http://books.google.com/books?uid=16174267486671998903

Just tought someone else might find this feature useful. I'm going to bookmark it on my iPhone so next time I'm in a book store and I can't remember if I have the book already I can look it up.

Jack, I'd love to see your painting. I hope you're able to locate it. I bought the book when I was working in acrylics and used his technique on one of my paintings. Here's the step by step of the one I did. Excuse the nose I kinda messed up.

Vermeer is one of my very favorite artists. I hope you find your painting Jack.
Janet - that looks like a good technique for one of your black-gessoed canvases.
Thanks for putting up the Google Books link. I wonder how long it would take to enter around 10,000 books...

I was wondering about doing an underpainting on black gessoed canvas working light to dark maybe with a ivory black and burnt umber mixture. Some day I'll give it a try. So you're a book collecter as well. Books and art supplies are my two weaknesses.

Found the painting all I have to do is photograph it then put it on my blog.
I'm also going to investigate the google book link
Jack

Here she is. Bit damaged lying under other paintings. Her left hand is wrong. Too small. One thing I've learned is that the length of the hand is the same as the length of the face. Just tried it on myself. Put the heel of my palm on my chin and if I had some hair the tip of my middle finger would have met the hairline.
I recall that whilst I found the technique to be very time consuming it also gave me a great deal of satisfaction.
The background in Joseph Sheppards's article was ornamental. I went for a black background. Since then I have found that the best background is a very deep Olive, almost black.

Jack, she's beautiful! Maybe their is variety in the size of hand because if I put my palm on my chin my middle finger meets my eyebrow. The hand might be a tad too small but maybe not as much as you think.

Janet I thought I had a lot of art books but I bow to you. I've now counted mine and I've only got between seventy and eighty. Soon to be diminished. So if you want to pop across here you can help yolurself.
Jack

That's very nice, Jack. I agree about the background - I like the warm, rich darks I get when I use olive green in the mix. Maybe her hand looks small because of the angle and foreshortening? Just like Janet - my fingers reach to the tops of the eyebrows.

I forgot all about this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Artists-Handbook-Materials-Techniques-Reference/dp/0670837016

Lots of info about mediums, pigments and safety standards.

Jack Thank you for the offer! Beleive me when I say it's tempting. I think you probably have the same number of art related books that I have. I find it difficult to part with a book. I have a whole room of books boxed up and ready to go. It's been about two years since I boxed them and they still haven't budged.

I think Callie is rite regarding the foreshortening. The hand is at an angle and moving away from the viewer. The best way I find to measure when drawing is to compare to another area of the body that you know the proportions are rite. If you see on the reference that the hand is the same size as say eyebrow to chin then measure on your painting eyebrow to chin and then use that mesurement for your hand.

Callie, that looks like a good book. I checked out the preview and it does cover a lot of subjects.

I really enjoy this subject. I had a few books from the library that were good - Schmidt's, Gruppe but the one I would love to own is landscape Painting by John F Carleson.

Vemeer is one of my favorites so I will have to look up his techniques

Enjoy Vermeer techniqiues. I have
Jack