Gist of Art: Principles and Practise Expounded in the Classroom and Studio

"The Gist of Art" is one of my all-time favorite books about art and art-technique. What fascinated me in this book was his treatment of the color wheel. He ditches it in favor of a color triangle, which is more useful for analyzing color. The midpoint between blue and red is purple, and so on... I especially liked how he broke the color triangle into smaller triangles, which he calls "limited palletes". Each of these limited palettes he assigns a mood, which I find fascinating. For example, you can work with all of the colors in the triangle bounded by the points red-orange-purple (or any other triad that is a subset of the color triangle). Working with limitations brings out your inventiveness. Maybe I haven't done it justice here, but the color triangle is something that I've relied on ever since I've studied Sloan's great book. I found it very useful with mixing up a limited set of watercolor paints for my own book called "Israel in Watercolors" (look it up!), where I worked with a very limited set of colors (just eight), yet came up with a myriad of mixtures. A little color mixing knowlege goes a long way. Also, Sloan is very avuncular; he's like the art-loving grandfather that I never had. He has some fine anecdotes about Robert Henri (another fave artist), and some opinions that crack me up, such as "all nudity in art is pornography". There's a charm to a man like that. I love this guy, and I've got to thank him once again for turning me on to the color triangle.