Color Theory: An essential guide to color--from basic principles to practical applications (Artist's Library) - Softcover

Mollica, Patti

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1600583024 ISBN 13: 9781600583025

Publisher: Walter Foster Publishing, 2013

Synopsis

In this essential guide, accomplished artist Patti Mollica walks you through the most important aspects of color theory as they relate to oil and acrylic painting.

Regardless of your medium, a solid understanding of color and its applications is essential. Petite in size but packed with information, this fresh, contemporary take on the subject of color features step-by-step projects and practical tips and techniques to put color knowledge to effective use.

From pigment characteristics and color mixing to color psychology, you’ll find all the insight you need to make dynamic, harmonious, and meaningful color choices in your own works of art.

You’ll find within: discussions and illustrations of the complexities of color and how to use it as a tool for communication; tips for creating vibrant mixes, lively blacks, realistic greens, and flesh tones; and an inspiring collection of fresh and contemporary artwork.

• Begin with an overview of color in the history of art and the science behind color.
• Then learn color basics: the color wheel; hue, saturation, and value; color and value; color temperature; color relativity; and color schemes.
• Everything you need to know about pigments and paints is detailed next.
• With these essentials covered, move on to integrate color with your compositions and painting style as a means of expression.

Harness the power of color in your painting with Color Theory!

About this title

About the Author

Patti Mollica lives and works with her fellow-artist and jazz musician husband, Mark Hagan, in New York City and Nyack. An impressionistic and contemporary painter, she believes that a painter's job is to show the viewer the inherent beauty of all subjects and scenes. She has been selected by Golden Paints to facilitate workshops demonstrating "Creative Techniques Using Golden Paints and Mediums."

From the Back Cover

In this essential guide, accomplished artist Patti Mollica walks you through the most important aspects of color theory as they relate to oil and acrylic painting. From pigment characteristics and color mixing to color psychology, you'll find all the information you need to make dynamic, harmonious, and meaningful color choices in your own works of art.
- Discusses and illustrates the complexities of color and how to use it as a tool for communication;
- Offers tips for creating vibrant mixes, lively blacks, realistic greens, and flesh tones;
- Features an inspiring collection of fresh and contemporary artwork.

From the Inside Flap

Patti Mollica has been a fine artist and professional illustrator for more than 30 years. Her artwork is known for its fearless use of color and uninhibited brushwork. She delights in painting the world around her in a bold, decisive style, with hues that are intense, brilliant, and contemporary.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Now that we know a little about the science behind color, how do we use our knowledge of light and color to organize a visual system that we can use to achieve our artistic goals? Fortunately, much of this organization has been done for us. The easiest way to view color relationships is through a circular diagram called the “color wheel”—a visual organization of color hues that follow a logical order around a circle. Seeing the colors organized in this fashion is helpful for color mixing and choosing color schemes. Many accomplished colorists throughout history, such as Wilhelm Ostwald, Dr. Herbert Ives, Sir Isaac Newton, and Albert H. Munsell, developed their own variations of color charting, but the 12-hue wheel pictured here is the most common model used by artists today.

Edition details

• Publisher: Walter Foster Publishing
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1600583024
• ISBN 13: 9781600583025
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 64