Color site--check it out

Colourlovers is a fantastic site for anyone interested in color. Everything from fine art to color theory and design, with international scope, is on this site. I've been enjoying it ever since Charley Parker wrote about it on his blog, linesandcolors.

Book Review: Designer's Color Manual

Subtitled "The Complete Guide to Color Theory and Application," Tom Fraser and Adams Banks's book Designer's Color Manual (2004) is a visual delight and packed with fascinating information. My copy is tabbed all around the edges with Post-it stickers marking pages I want to reread. The 224-page book in glorious color tackles everything from color science to color in art and everyday life in an encyclopedic format that is delightful and understandable to read and enjoy, if not in depth on every subject. I especially benefited from the sections on color in publishing, web design and color marketing. There is even some detailed "how-to" on image manipulation, including color management for your computer monitor and printer (one of my tabs is there!). This book won't teach you how to paint in color, but it will give you a remarkable overview of color in almost every aspect of modern life. Highly recommended.

Book Review: PowerColor

Caroline Jasper's PowerColor: Master Color Concepts in All Media. provides an interesting overview of color concepts not found in many books on color. Personally, I enjoy reading the scientific and historical information. When I wrote my first Exploring Color book (1985) such material was hard to find and took diligent research and a lot of winnowing to cut the information down to size for the first two chapters of my book. When I revised Exploring Color: How to Use and Control Color in Your Painting (1998), I was asked to compress it into fewer pages and had to give up most of that material in order to concentrate on the practical tasks of learning about paint characteristics and using them in artwork. I'm glad to see a fresh book that includes summaries of this interesting background information. I don't agree with her on color wheels and find their use inconsistent in the book, but it's theory, and she's entitled to her opinion. Jasper features several artists in their studios with step-by-step demos of their work. The book includes a broad spectrum (pun intended, sorry) of styles and is lavishly illustrated in color.

More Art Book Reviews

Ron Ranson on Skies (Studio Vista, 1998) is for landscape painters in any medium who love to feature skies. The book shows techniques mostly in watercolor, but does include instruction on some other media, along with excellent photographs of cloud formations and many wonderful sky paintings. This is a great reference for landscape painters. I'm a sky freak myself and love paging through this book to look at the photos and paintings.

Colour and Light in Oils by Nicholas Verrall and Robin Capon (Batsford, 2004). The pages on Understanding Oils are very informative and user friendly, even to a beginner in oils like me. There aren't many swatches for visual comprehension, but the artwork throughout is dazzling, but not overwhelming as a possible goal for an artist to strive for. Verrall and Capon cover painting color and light, different types of subject matter and the working process, with a few demos scattered throughout the book in two or three stages.

The Digital Canvas: Discovering the Art Studio in Your Computer. (Abrams Studio, 2006.) This book by Jonathan Raimes almost makes me want to sell all my painting gear and just play with my computer. It's dazzling and I really think I could do it with this book as my text. The book has page after page of brilliant color effects with simple computer screen shots to show the tools for achieving them. Probably not for beginners, but definitely for creative computer artists.

Barbara McGuire has written Embracing Child Art. (Krause, 2001) to give adults ideas on how to encourage a child's natural creativity and ultimately help them to make a few treasured objects. There are wonderful suggestions for guiding Little Artists and helping them create projects with their own art to last a lifetime. The best part of the book is page after page of wonderful examples of child art.

Helen Van Wyk's Color Mixing the Van Wyk Way: A Manual for Oil Painters (Art Instruction Associates, 2000) has quickly become a classic since it was first published in 1995. She keeps the color concepts simple, emphasizing primarily color temperature and comparing a few basic palette choices for simple still lifes and portraits. This book would help beginners in oils to understand their colors and master color mixing of specific pigments.

Helen Van Wyk's Favorite Color Recipes. (Art Instruction Associates, 2000) expands somewhat on the previous book and introduces a greater variety of subjects with color recipes in oil paints that are her recommendations for painting them. This book ale effects in this book are understood, the painter would be well advised to develop a more personal palette of colors.

Barron's Creative Painting Series: Color. (2005) by Gemma Guasch and Josep Asunción contains a wealth of useful information on color and numerous beautiful reproductions of masterpieces to illustrate the use of color throughout art history. I love that part of the book, but I don't think the demo paintings do it justice. Maybe it's just the design of the book. Check it out, though, because it has a lot to offer.

Once again, thanks to McCallister's Art Store for providing books for my reviews.

Learning color mixing in watercolor

Yesterday my beginners had their first adventure with color. They've been practicing washes and brushstrokes, textures and values for three weeks using only Payne's Gray. It's just too confusing to try to figure out color when you haven't learned to handle a brush. Because they're all doing homework and seem to be "getting it," we worked on color theory and mixing a week earlier than usual. I demonstrate my split-primary color-mixing system, painting a color wheel with six colors, while I explain the principles that make it work. They all did a pretty good job of painting their own wheels following the demo. The usual problem is using too much water and weakening the saturation of the hues on the wheel. Their homework this week is to play with colors. It will be interesting to see what they bring in for show-and-tell next week.

Exploring basic color theory

I can tell this is going to be a good class. Aside from the fact that four people arrived late (sigh!) and three were on vacation (a given in Ohio in the winter), the orientation went well. Lots of good questions, several aha! moments and a few jaw-dropping, I-had-no-idea reactions to color facts and theories. Great fun for me! I showed slides on the history of color in art because I think it's very helpful to see where color started (30,000 or more years ago) and how it evolved from decorative and symbolic to representational and expressive. I wound up the session with the split-primary color-mixing system from my book, Exploring Color, showed them how to mix the wheel, explaining the theory behind it. They have homework (groan!). Everyone must study the properties of color and do the charts and color wheel. It will be interesting to see how many get it done. Next week we're going to learn all about paint--characteristics of pigments, paint quality, differences in brands, and more. I love this workshop.

Digital photography resource

Here's an interesting blog on Color in Digital Photography: Introduction to Color Theory. The principles apply to printing and computing, as well. Plus, here's a link to an article I wrote on Harmony and Contrast of Colors, which is recommended by the photography site.

Color bias

Color wheels are based on the properties of light, but pigments aren't pure like light is. Their characteristics vary in transparency, intensity, tinting strength, granulation, viscosity and staining properties. As important as these characteristics are, they aren't the key factor in color mixing. Each pigment also has a distinctive color bias that influences mixtures. Understanding color bias is essential to successful color mixing.

The dictionary says bias is a "preference or an inclination." When you call Alizarin Crimson a bluish-red, you're saying that it is a red that leans toward blue. Most pigments have such inclinations. Determine the bias in a paint color, and you can control mixtures incorporating that color. For example, to mix a good violet or purple, use a bluish-red and a reddish-blue. A yellowish-red or greenish-blue would add yellow to the mixture and dull the color, because yellow is the complement (opposite) of the color you're trying to mix. Yellow is also the third primary color, so when you want to mix bright colors, make sure there are only two primaries in the mixture.

For a more detailed explanation of color-mixing see the split-primary color-mixing system on my web site or my book, Exploring Color.

The logic of color

Newton started it when he connected the ends of the prism to make the first color wheel. Some time later someone else noticed that certain colors, designated "primary colors," could be used to mix other colors in paint. Eventually, another individual discovered the nature of complements, opposites on the color wheel. Understanding these characteristics of color is key to good color in artwork. Some people have an intuitive sense for color, but if something isn't working, they find it hard to solve the problem without going to color theory. Granted, the rules we know about color are "theories," but they're based on principles that work in the real world. There have been hundreds of color theories based on three to six "primaries,"; there are color wheels, color solids, color triangles and color bars. One theory that has stood the test of time is the color wheel based on twelve hues. This wheel gives you the primaries, the secondaries (colors mixed from two primaries) and the tertiaries (colors mixed from a primary and the secondary next to it). If the mixtures don't give you the results you want, it isn't the theory that's at fault--it's the paint. Our pigments aren't pure, spectral colors like the colors of light. Their density and handling characteristics sometimes get in the way. If you want to become a master colorist, study the properties of color, learn the characteristics of your paints and use the logic of the color wheel.

Neutral colors--an oxymoron

Neutrals are achromatic, meaning they have no color. Black, gray and white. Anything else is chromatic, having color, from shocking pink to beige. At least that's how it's stated in color theory. But artists have their own ideas about neutrals and usually this means they're looking for a color bias instead of a flat black, gray or white: a bluish-black, a greenish-gray or a pinkish-white. These are more interesting than the neutrals you find in a tube of flat black or gray paint. So how do you mix exciting neutrals?

The rule in color theory is that neutral gray or black is the result of mixing two complementary (opposite) colors on the color wheel. It works in theory, but not in paint. Very few colors can be described as exact opposites and almost none are true hues in the color scheme sense. Sometimes you get black or gray when you mix, but often you get brown or umber. The paint colors are actually "near complements" and make a mixture with a bias toward one of the two colors in the mixture. This color combination makes a more vibrant mixture.

One thing to remember about mixing neutrals is to use only the colors that are already in your painting. Plan your colors before you paint to make sure you can get your full range of values, color and neutrals. Mingle the colors you've chosen. Don't decide at the last minute to throw in a tube neutral or it will stand out like a sore thumb.