Making Color Sing

I own a lot of watercolor books but this is one of the best on color mixing. I read it again and again

MAKING COLOR SING is a workshop in watercolor. Jeanne Dobie, AWS, is a watercolor master of international fame and recipient of many prestigious awards. From the contents of this book we can also vouch for her generosity for sharing her knowledge and secrets with us. In an orderly fashion, step-by-step, she divulges the mystery of her seemingly effortless diaphanous watercolors. For beginners as well as for the experienced watercolorists, Making Color Sing provides a basis for crossing barriers and expanding beyond. Dividing her chapters methodically, Jenne Dobie demonstrates with clear illustrations how to mix transparent colors and how to avoid muddy colors. For example, an entire chapter is devoted to muted mouse colors and another to octanic colors, or how to use brilliant watercolors. Every painter is a little reticent to use green in their composition. Jeanne Dobie demonstrates multitude techniques to create an array of beautiful greens. She even reveals how to create distance and atmosphere with warm and cool colors. Pushing color into a cooler shade causes it to recede, while warm colors seem to advance. She strives to show how to capture atmospheric changes and the changing light. You will learn how to experiment with push pull actions, as well as with warm and cool colors that will look more than pretty. Three dimensional forms will appear like magic depending on the light, and shadows. Most artists are afraid to use dark colors. Jeanne Dobie's use of potent dark colors as opposed to the right measure of white and light colors make her watercolors jump out off the page. The secret is in the interaction of complements. There are some illustrated examples that will guide the neophyte to explore these possibilities. In order to create colors that pulsate, you need to create a reaction with the color surrounding it. Jeanne Dobie gives us several combinations on how to make color sing. Jeanne Dobie also gives you a list of "What went wrong." She also illustrates how to enlarge your repertoire of whites and half tones with a wonderful chart. In one of the chapters she demonstrates the art of not mixing, or how to layer with glazes. This chapter is followed by the one on working in gradated glazes to obtain atmospheric glazes. Glazes can also be used to correct errors as evidenced in another chapter. Another important feature of Dobie's art is design. Shapes and forms are very important in her compositions. Her hard edges are blended and result in a diaphanous, transparent veil that all watercolorists would no doubt envy. Working with glazes is another of Jeanne Dobie's assets and yet, she shares her knowledge with a great deal of generosity. Jeanne Dobie leaves the best for the last chapters or how to design shapes in color. Light and dark patterns are explored and demonstrated in a simple and concise manner. It is another matter to imitate these seemingly simple designs- one has to experiment of course. Go out and buy your o

The talented Jeanne Dobie does a lot of her work in the sun-drenched Florida Keys. While there are many good books on color and pigment, Dobie explains how light in a painting scene shifts moment by moment and how you have to be ready to capture that brilliant moment with the right palette.The book gives advice on which colors to put in a limited palette for brilliance. (As anyone who has done watercolor even for a short time knows, there are hundreds of colors available, but when you MIX them, sometimes you get a flat, dull result that looks like mud on the paper.) Choosing a limited and CORRECT palette for the painting you are going to do is one of the most critical steps after creating the composition. Dobie includes important facts about which paints stain the paper (and cannot be lifted up again), which are transparent and can be used as a wash or glaze, and which paints are opaque. And if you follow the "purist" rule of no white paint, you learn how to leave the whites (use the paper for brilliant whites) and no black paint (which causes a visual hole in the paper.) Instead, Dobie shows the student painter how dark colors like brown or a visual black can be mixed that still look luminous and interesting on the paper. This is a very difficult technique to master--shadow detail can make or break a painting. I disagree with one of her points, however, on mixing greens. While it is true that green pigments direct from the tube are far more brilliant and transparent than any you can mix, I find certain mixed greens from yellows and blues to be subtle for shadowed foliage, and sometimes the pure paint greens are jarring and unnatural to me. I tried to follow this "use unmixed" greens rule, and I end up mixing mine anyway, though I own many shades of green paints. Of course, the best part of the book are the paintings. These are inspiring to the reader, but this author can also write and explain herself well. This book should be a standard on any watercolorist's shelf.

I am a learning watercolor artist and I read many books on the subject. This is one of a handful that I find to be particularly informative. While most art instruction books tell you what to do and how to do it, Jeanne Dobie patiently explains why. In other words, she tells you what is behind the magic. For example, she says that you cannot get a good green by mixing any yellow and any blue, because, a yellow such as cadmium yellow contains some red and a blue such as ultramarine also contains some red, and the presence of red in green (the hoped-for color), which are complements on the color wheel, yields gray. Thus the resulting green is very muted. Explanations such as this are invaluable to me, because the underlying reasons she gives completely convinces me that she is right and the knowledge is extensible to other color combinations.There are many such gems of knowledge in this book. Jeanne Dobie teaches you how to create not just contrast, but a "singing" combination of colors, and how to mix your own blacks and your own whites to achieve much more nuanced presentations. And there is much more.Admittedly, some artists do not feel bound by these "rules" of color and can still produce very good art. Charles Reid comes to mind. For the rest of us, the wisdoms Jeanne Dobie shares in this book are an important part of an artist's knowledge base.

I have a library full of books on watercolor. Dobie's book is the one I read over and over and carry with me where ever I go. If I get stuck in a painting, a key to the answer is always in this book. This is a book to read several times. Each time I read it, I take my painting to a higher level. My copy is so dog-eared, I will soon need another one. If you know a watercolorist, this book would make a great gift. I call it "The Bible" of watercolor books.

The most helpful book I have read. Advice on which colors to use to set up a palette that does make your watercolors vibrant and alive. Jeanne gives you specific directions about transparent, staining and opaque watercolors in a way that makes one remember it. The book is full of wonderful color charts and examples of paintings. She is a rare find in that she is able to turn out gorgeous paintings and teach how to do it as well. Jeanne, when are you going to put out some videos? I want to SEE you paint!