Color by Betty Edwards : A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors

by Edwards, Betty

• ISBN13: 9781585422197
• ISBN10: 1585422193
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-09-23
• Publisher: Random House

Summary

Millions of people have learned to draw using the methods of Dr. Betty Edwards's bestseller The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Now, much as artists progress from drawing to painting, Edwards moves from black-and-white into color. This new guide distills the enormous existing knowledge about color theory into a practical method of working with color to produce harmonious combinations. Using techniques tested and honed in her five-day intensive color workshops, Edwards provides a basic understanding of how to see color, how to use it, and-for those involved in art, painting, or design-how to mix and combine hues. Including more than 125 color images and exercises that move from simple to challenging, this volume explains how to: - see what is really there rather than what you "know" in your mind about colored objects - perceive how light affects color, and how colors affect one another - manipulate hue, value, and intensity of color and transform colors into their opposites - balance color in still-life, landscape, figure, and portrait painting - understand the psychology of color - harmonize color in your surroundings While we recognize and treasure the beautiful use of color, reproducing what we see can be a challenge. Accessibly unweaving color's complexity, this must-have primer is destined to be an instant classic.

Author Biography

Betty Edwards is professor emeritus of art at California State University. She is the author of The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, the world's most widely used drawing instructional.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: The Importance of Color	p. xiii
Drawing, Color, Painting, and Brain Processes	p. 2
Seeing Colors as Values	p. 3
Why Values Are Important	p. 4
The Role of Language in Color and Painting	p. 6
The Constancies: Seeing and Believing	p. 8
Seeing How Light Changes Colors	p. 10
Seeing How Colors Affect Each Other	p. 12
Understanding and Applying Color Theory	p. 14
Theories about Color	p. 15
Applying Color Theory in Art	p. 17
Learning the Vocabulary of Color	p. 20
The Three Primary Colors	p. 21
The Three Secondary Colors	p. 23
The Six Tertiary Colors	p. 23
Analogous Colors	p. 23
Complementary Colors	p. 25
Naming Colors: The L-Mode Role in Mixing Colors	p. 26
The Three Attributes of Color: Hue, Value, and Intensity	p. 28
From Naming to Mixing	p. 31
Moving from Theory to Practice	p. 33
Buying and Using Paints and Brushes	p. 36
Buying Supplies	p. 37
Beginning to Paint	p. 41
Mixing a Color	p. 44
Subjective Color	p. 45
Cleaning Up	p. 47
Using the Color Wheel to Understand Hue	p. 48
Making a Color Wheel Template	p. 49
Painting the Color Wheel	p. 51
Practice in Identifying Hues	p. 56
Mixing Colors	p. 57
Creating Colors: How Four Pigments Can Become Hundreds of Colors	p. 57
Using the Color Wheel to Understand Value	p. 60
Value	p. 61
Shades of Gray-Constructing a Value Wheel/Hue Scanner	p. 61
How to Use Your Value Wheel/Hue Scanner	p. 63
How to Lighten and Darken Colors	p. 64
Two Color Value Wheels-From White to a Pure Hue, From a Pure Hue to Black	p. 65
Other Ways of Lightening and Darkening Colors	p. 68
Another Way to Darken a Color	p. 70
Summing Up	p. 70
Using the Color Wheel to Understand Intensity	p. 72
The Power of the Primaries to Cancel Color	p. 73
Creating an Intensity Wheel-From a Pure Hue to No Color and Back Again	p. 77
Practice in Naming Hue, Value, and Intensity	p. 79
Other Ways to Dull Colors	p. 80
What Constitutes Harmony in Color?	p. 84
The Aesthetic Response to Harmonious Color	p. 85
The Phenomenon of After-images	p. 86
After-images and the Attributes of Color	p. 90
Albert Munsell's Theory of Harmony Based on Balancing Color	p. 92
A Definition of Balanced Color	p. 93
Creating Harmony in Color	p. 96
Transforming Color Using Complements and the Three Attributes: Hue, Value, and Intensity	p. 96
Seeing the Effects of Light, Color Constancy, and Simultaneous Contrast	p. 112
The Next Step: Seeing How Light Affects the Colors of Three-Dimensional Shapes	p. 113
Why It Is Difficult to See the Effects of Light	p. 115
How to Accurately Perceive Colors Affected by Light	p. 116
Three Different Methods of Scanning a Hue	p. 116
The Next Step: Estimating the Intensity Level	p. 118
The Three-Part Process of Painting	p. 119
Painting a Still Life	p. 121
Seeing the Beauty of Color in Nature	p. 134
Color Harmony in Flowers	p. 135
Floral Painting in Art	p. 136
Colors in Nature Differ from Colors of Human-Made Objects	p. 139
Painting a Floral Still Life	p. 140
Nature as a Teacher of Color	p. 155
The Meaning and Symbolism of Colors	p. 156
Attaching Names to Colors	p. 157
Using Colors to Express Meaning	p. 158
The Color of Human Emotions	p. 161
Your Preferred Colors and What They Mean	p. 168
Knowing Your Color Preferences and Your Color Expressions	p. 171
The Symbolic Meanings of Colors	p. 172
Practicing Your Understanding of the Meaning of Color	p. 188
Using Your Color Knowledge	p. 190
Glossary	p. 193
Bibliography	p. 197
Index	p. 199
Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved.