Artist's Little Book of Color - Softcover

Jennings, Simon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1770859241 ISBN 13: 9781770859241

Publisher: Firefly Books, 2017

Synopsis

"Highly recommended for public libraries."
--Library Journal

"It's hard to imagine a more comprehensive look at color scheme possibilities."
--Los Angeles Times

Artist's Little Book of Color is a comprehensive and practical guide to the world of color packed with useful information on all aspects of color. The first half of the book is organized into chapters on each of the primary, secondary and tertiary colors. The author combines color history, composition and attributes, mythology, science, botany, chemistry and synthetic colors, and tells engaging stories about the great artists and their use of color.

The second half of the book is information on pigment standards, color terminology and the mixing of colors. It features an extensive 450-color index and a guide to suppliers, a useful resource for anyone working with color. The color index is laid out with 12 colors per page, each identified by name and manufacturer, including product numbers.

Artist's Little Book of Color is a handy and attractive guide to the fascinating world of color and an essential sourcebook for artists, designers, art students and teachers.

About this title

About the Author

Simon Jennings is a visiting lecturer at a number of leading art schools. He conceived and designed many books on art and design, including Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Self Portraits and Collins Artist's Manual.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

The subject of color is so vast and the ranges of pigments and materials available to the artist so wide, variable and subtle, it is inevitable that the best means of finding out how particular colors really look and handle is by actually using them.

In this book there is a great deal of information about color and its value to the artist. Hundreds of colors are mentioned and shown in the various media in numerous combinations, mixtures and applications. Most artists will admit that the only effective way to knowledge and confidence is to experiment with the actual colors and different media yourself. It is hoped that this book can provide a springboard into the world of color for the artist.

Unfortunately, there is one obvious drawback to it. This is that when it comes to the subtlety of reproducing color all of the colors shown here are printed, not painted. They are not the actual colors at all, but are reproduced by the four color printing process using only four ink colors. Modern printing technology and the skills of graphic reproduction have brought us very close to the reality of seeing real, pure pigment color on the printed page.

Edition details

• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1770859241
• ISBN 13: 9781770859241
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128