The Color Book

The Color Book is touted as a Comprehensive Guide to Color in Oil, Watercolor, and Acrylic Painting with over 450 Illustrations, 270 Color Plates, 180 B & W plates, and including 30 Step-by-Step Demonstrations in Full Color. As an oil painter I purchased this book knowing only that it was older, called "The Color Book," and consisted of 256 pages. I was disappointed when it arrived and I saw that it covered watercolor and acrylic too... you know how that goes... it's that much less information about the medium of your choice. However, I've discovered it to be a very nice book and a very pleasant surprise. It covers a lot of material and best of all there are three parts to the book, all identical in their topics, but different in their medium. No wading through material about mediums you don't use... but if you wonder how the mediums compare, you just read another section. The topics for each medium are: Colors, Values, Value Scales, Testing the medium, Making a Color Chart, Color Relationships - Intensity and Value, Color Perspective, Color Harmony, Color and Time of Day, Demo - Tonal Palette, Demo - Primary Palette, Demo- Full Palette Subdued Color, Demo - Full Palette Rich Color, Demo - Monochrome Underpainting, Demo - Limited Color Underpainting, Demo - Textural (Under)painting, Demo Wet-into-Wet Technique, Demo - Knife painting/Stroke Technique, Composing Color, Light and Shade, Light Direction, Light and Weather, Color Key, Contrast, Painting High Key, Painting Low Key, Painting High Contrast, Painting Low Contrast, and Making Tonal Plans. Lots of info!