The Oil Painter's Color Handbook: A Contemporary Guide to Color Mixing, Pigments, Palettes, and Harmony
Product ID: 329495323
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A contemporary and accessible foundation of color theory and advanced techniques for the oil painter at every skill level " In The Oil Painter's Color Handbook , Todd Casey presents priceless information that every art school should teach and every art student should learn. The book breaks down the subject of color into useful pieces of knowledge that painters can put into practice. He analyzes color in terms of light, value, pigment, mixing strategies, palette arrangements, and painting techniques. Each topic is clearly and succinctly explained in the text, illustrated with captions, charts, diagrams, and finished paintings. By the end of the book, the reader will have a clear understanding of how realist painters and illustrators have used color through history." - James Gurney, artist and author “This is the most impressive and complete book on color ever produced. It covers a wide range of color concepts, including some I'd never seen before. It digs deeply into color harmony, techniques, and has powerful examples to demonstrate every concept.” - Eric Rhoads, Publisher, Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine From Todd M. Casey, acclaimed artist and expert teacher, The Oil Painter’s Color Handbook: A Contemporary Guide to color Mixing, Pigments, Palettes, and Harmony provides everything the oil painter needs to understand all aspects of color and empowers the reader to paint with confidence. As Casey notes, every artist and artist-in-training must learn how to “master the main concepts of picture-making: drawing, light, shadow, value, form, composition, and color.” A follow-up to the bestselling The Art of Still Life: A Contemporary Guide to Classical Techniques, Composition, and Painting in Oil (Monacelli, 2020), The Oil Painter’s Color Handbook begins with an in-depth look at the use of color throughout art history. Casey then breaks down the process of understanding color into easily digestible lessons―each clearly explained and richly illustrated with both historic and contemporary paintings―so that the reader can learn progressively and layer more complex ideas as each skill is achieved. Through clear instruction, step-by-step demonstrations, and challenging exercises, readers will learn to apply these techniques and concepts to their own painting. Once educated with this fundamental knowledge, as an artist, one can begin to find the balance between the science and emotional intuition in creating art. This informative and visually dynamic book will be accessible and appealing to artists, art students, and art instructors, to serious amateurs and hobbyists. Review: Best book I have read about color relating to oil painting so far! - This was a great book to learn more about mixing color for painting. Nice hard cover book with quality pages. I read through the book in less than a week cause I didn't want to put it down. The first few chapters were a bit more about color history and some things that I already knew, but once you get to chapter 5, it gets really good and had information I haven't seen presented anywhere else about color mixing. I'm not sure if this author has any other books out there, but would buy more if he did. There are a lot of nice photos throughout the book and great color wheels, especially helpful if you use Gamblin Oil paints since some of the detailed color wheels plot the gamblin pigments on the wheel and shows where they are in relation to all other colors in the paint line. I am probably going to go back through the book now that I finished it and write down all the highlights of great information into a notebook to keep near my easel.! Review: Incredibly valuable color resource for painters - This is one of the most valuable and readable art books I've purchased! Invaluable for understanding all aspects of color and color mixing from a practical perspective. It had excellent illustration and imagery to accompany the concepts. It's one of the few art books I've actually read cover-to-cover. It has some overlap with Schmid's Alla Prima, particularly in the guidance to create color references and charts, but with a twist and greater explanation and guidance. It's also liberally peppered with original art by the author to complement the text, but also other magnificent paintings by many others as well. However it is not a substitute for Alla prima - which is a more general text and delves much more into many other aspects of painting impressionistic realism but less into color and color theory.
| Best Sellers Rank | #38,841 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #4 in Oil Painting #43 in Graphic Design Color Use #2,400 in Reference (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 stars 618 Reviews |
S**L
Best book I have read about color relating to oil painting so far!
This was a great book to learn more about mixing color for painting. Nice hard cover book with quality pages. I read through the book in less than a week cause I didn't want to put it down. The first few chapters were a bit more about color history and some things that I already knew, but once you get to chapter 5, it gets really good and had information I haven't seen presented anywhere else about color mixing. I'm not sure if this author has any other books out there, but would buy more if he did. There are a lot of nice photos throughout the book and great color wheels, especially helpful if you use Gamblin Oil paints since some of the detailed color wheels plot the gamblin pigments on the wheel and shows where they are in relation to all other colors in the paint line. I am probably going to go back through the book now that I finished it and write down all the highlights of great information into a notebook to keep near my easel.!
N**E
Incredibly valuable color resource for painters
This is one of the most valuable and readable art books I've purchased! Invaluable for understanding all aspects of color and color mixing from a practical perspective. It had excellent illustration and imagery to accompany the concepts. It's one of the few art books I've actually read cover-to-cover. It has some overlap with Schmid's Alla Prima, particularly in the guidance to create color references and charts, but with a twist and greater explanation and guidance. It's also liberally peppered with original art by the author to complement the text, but also other magnificent paintings by many others as well. However it is not a substitute for Alla prima - which is a more general text and delves much more into many other aspects of painting impressionistic realism but less into color and color theory.
D**S
Great resource
A valuable asset for those interested in learning more about mixing colors, and achieving specific hues, intensities, and values. This book provides a wide range of examples along with background information. Quite a great resource I found at 30% discount
K**R
Just Buy it. You won't regret it. Thank you Todd Casey!!
Hands down the best book I have come across regarding color theory and includes many different color wheels and where each paint color lands on a color wheel. Todd Casey gives many different full color examples and artist palettes with beautiful examples of the variety of colors you can achieve with limited palette up to full palette with 12-20 hues (colors). I have many tubes of paint that I have purchased in the past few years and my head started swimming with where to begin. When I begin a painting, I have this book out on a separate desktop easel to refer to when trying to figure out whether the color is warm or cool and what direction the color will go when mixed with another color. I have purchased a few other books that turned out to dust collectors. This book is filled with color examples, color strings, warm and cool versions of each color....I could go on and on. Best 33 dollar investment I've made in a long time. Thank you Todd Casey for the hard work you've put into this piece of art in the form of a book.
N**S
best book I've seen on the subject of oil color mixing in 40 years of oil painting
In my over 40 years of oil painting experience theirs a couple of things I have learned about Art books... One... if you can't put it in a visual format why write it? Most Artist will absorb information via visual pictorial example... that means lots of pictures... Because Artist are Artist... who's business is the business of making pictures... it only makes logical since to use that medium to communicate with them... This book does just that... plenty of pictorial examples to fully explain this complex subject matter... Secondy is why publish a book explaining color that is printed only in black and white? yes... I have seen many books over the years who attempted to do just that... This book is filled with full color examples of master works related to the written explanation of why that particular Artist use of color and pallet was important... plus... there are over whelming full color schematics of the various color pallets used by the old masters and some modern masters as well... the book covers into color theory extensively enough to explain why what we learned in elementary school about color is simply wrong... explaining how there are different color gamuts of light, pigment, the printing process, computer monitors etc... and these all have to be taken into account as an oil painter in the modern world... having studied and practiced oil painting for many years not everything is covered... however I was pleasantly surprised just how comprehensive this book covered the subject... This is a serious Art book for the serious Oil Painter who wants to learn the craft with a most up to date study on the subject...
L**N
Amazing Art Book
5/5 stars! This book is the best! Such a lovely book and easy to follow with. Very detailed with thorough explanations. Would definitely recommend this book to anyone diving into oil painting or art in general! Price was worth every bit of information in this book!
L**Z
A good guide for color mixing.
'The Oil Painter's Color Handbook: A Contemporary Guide to Color Mixing, Pigments, Palettes, and Harmony' is a good guide for color mixing. Each topic is clearly explained in the text, and is also illustrated with captions, charts, diagrams, and finished paintings. This is one of the most comprehensive books on color theory for artists. It covers everything from understanding color relationships to how to use color wheels. It explains complex concepts and provides easy to understand answers.
T**F
Best color theory book
The best color theory book with great examples and background information. Highly recommended
Z**B
A must for every artist
Very useful guide to a successful painting.
Y**C
Dent at edge of book and book doesnt seems like a new copy!
Love the book content but delivery comes without any form of protective bubble wrap, 2-3 edges are dented and the book doesn't comes with any wrapper and seems like a rejected or return copy. In short no effort is taken to protect the item, hopeless!!!
F**S
Very helpfull when oilcolor mixing.
Very good color book, explains when and how to mix oilcolor for a specific result, well explained and some nice pictures
P**A
The Holy Bible for the oil painter
This book is perfect for both beginners and the experienced painter. Even if you do not work with oil paints, you will definitely find this book insightful. I certainly wish this book existed decades ago when I had just started my painting journey! The print quality is fantastic. A book that focuses on color that certainly has paid extra attention to detail on how colors should be presented most accurately and with high-fidelity in print. Every page contains valuable information that is supplemented by relevant visual aid which makes it a super effective learning tool for art students (who are mostly visual learners). I especially love that the author does not subscribe to any one school of thought in particular when it comes to color theory/color palettes, but presents his readers with multiple perspectives instead; from various eras, with various historical contexts so that the reader is encouraged to decide for themselves how they wish to approach their own paintings with all that given information. An additional bonus is that the science of optics, and of color perception are both topics that are also mentioned which are often neglected in other oil painting manuals. Sometimes the beginner painter does not realise that their ability to perceive color and value is just as important as the ability to understand how color and value should be utilised — and this book acknowledges that importance. There were so many things I had to relearn, so many questions that were raised during my painting journey and this book has finally provided the answers I was looking for that wasn’t available anywhere else previously. Color/pigment is such a complex subject and this book also goes into detail about the historicity of what we have gotten correctly and incorrectly in the past regarding its unique characteristics, chemical makeup, and properties. It is like having the most up-to-date version of what we now know about pigment properties so far — which is exactly what I was looking for: the contemporary color (oil painting) compendium.
E**A
Libro Meraviglioso
Non mi aspettavo fosse così bello e dettagliato. Uno studio del colore veramente approfondito. Lo consiglio.
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