Customer Reviews

COLOR IS EVERYTHING: Master the Use of Color in Oils, Acrylics or Watercolors

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Color is Everything by Dan Bartges is the best color theory book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I have been dabbling in painting for several years now and still have a problem with color. After reading the book I took my very first painting and was able to figure out what I need to do to fix it so that I will like it again. The fix is very simple. I have had a color wheel for years, due to quilting but never really had someone explain and give examples of how to use it. Believe it or not it came with a color theory book for quilters. The most beneficial part of the book was where he put up pictures and had the reader figure out the color scheme used. The ability to do hands-on work with the book was also very helpful. I pulled out some of my fabric I had put together for quilts and found some very common mistakes I had made. These would have been not too pleasing. I usually have my daughter help pick out my color schemes based around one central color because she has that "natural ability" that so many of us don't have. I will share this book with her as she has been experimenting with painting. This is definitely a book for the beginner and advanced artist or artist in training. I will give this book 5 out of 5 and recommend it to my quilting and arts and crafts friends.

As an art lover and fledgling artist I often knew that the colors in a painting were exactly right -- or terribly wrong. This wonderful book begins by taking you to the art supply store so that you can get the simple but essential tools which start you on your way. By use of the "color wheel" it guides you in mixing colors to get exactly what you want. Then, with examples of the author's art and classical museum works, it uses the color wheel to explain why the colors are just right -- and sometimes, how to make them better.

Whether you're just beginning to dabble in painting or you've been at it for years, this book, along with the color wheel, will enhance you efforts and make painting more fun.

I am not in any way an artist, but that skill is not necessary to appreciate this book. It is about color schemes in painting, how colors complement and clash and the schemes that will work best to capture specific images. The opening is an explanation of colors and the creation of a color wheel where the colors are organized according to how they complement each other. This is followed by a description and demonstration of the six color schemes:

*) Monochromatic
*) Analogous
*) Complementary
*) Split complementary
*) Triadic
*) Tetrad

The next chapter is devoted to exercises in recognizing color schemes. A painting is presented and the reader is asked to identify which color scheme and colors were used in the creation. Chapter 5 is a series of photos where the reader is quizzed to determine what color scheme would best capture the image. These two chapters alone make this book an excellent resource for painting courses in classes for art majors. The explanations are so clear that even I could understand them.
Making an understandable plan for the colors to be used in a painting is a necessary precondition for that painting to catch the eye in a positive sense. Bartges puts down all of the information necessary for the reader to understand the fundamentals of color scheming and how to do it right as well as how to fix it when it is wrong.

As an amateur artist and a gift-giver to artists, I find Bartges' book to be the answer to great dilemmas: color questions of my own and a way to look very savvy to my artist-friends! This book is to painting what "new math" was decades ago to students who never understood math -- and we can be grateful to artist-author Dan Bartges for its seeming so easy. "Color Is Everything" makes anyone with the least bit of an inkling to put color to canvas want to grab paints, palettes and brushes and head for the hills (or any other destination that is one's inspiration)!

As an artist, I found Dan Batges's book "Color is Everything" to be quite educational and informative with color problems that I have experienced in the past. Explaining the use of the color wheel helps understand how to mix and complement the colors you want. I recommend this book highly for both the beginner and advanced artist who want to understand color schemes.

I loved this excellent, readable book! It is very helpful for all levels of painters, and those of us who aspire to be artists. I think it is also applicable to other aspects of everyday life, such as home decorating and wardrobe coordination. I learned so much about how and why colors either work together or don't, and how to attain color harmony. It's well-organized and beautifully illustrated. And, appropriately, the color reproduction is amazing!

I have taken several color theory classes and I can not denied that you always learn something new, especially with beginers. I was amazingly surprised with this book in the way that answered all my questions and made me able to choose mine color scheme and judge any painting in from of me. I have visited the most of Europe's museums and could tell when something is wrong but I did not know the specific reason. Now I do

Dan Bartges believes that all artists, from beginners to masters, can benefit from more grounding in color theory. The most common artistic errors come not from a lack of form, but from mishandled colors. And this short but detailed guide tells you how to mix paints, how to use the color wheel, and how to arrange colors in energetic, eye-catching relationships.

My own painting course dedicated just one ninety minute class to color theory. I spent most of that trying to fathom why my every attempt to blend yellow turned into a muddy greenish brown. But Bartges' straightforward, practical-minded pedagogy of color is natural enough that even this art school dropout can savvy the exercises with enough time and practice.

This is emphatically not a complete painting course. It is about color, nothing more. Nevertheless, I wish my professor had been this thorough. Bartges includes steps for beginners to set up a studio, gesso paper for plein-air painting, and turn a sheet of foamcore, a piece of plate glass, and some masking tape into a professional quality palatte.

More than this book will be needed to make an artist out of me. But this book fills a gap in art pedagogy that my professor slid over. Artists need to know how to use, balance, and understand color, and Bartges teaches this without needless jargon or art school ephemera. Beginners and mature painters alike should study this simple guide to color theory.

This is the best book I have read on color theory. It is easy to understand and gives examples of everything. It is small and easy to use and does not intimidate students. I use it in all my classes.

This is a good little book on color. He goes into detail on how to use the color wheel and has lots of sample paintings for you to try and others for you to figure out the color scheme. A very helpful book. I recommend along with this one: Color Choices: Making Color Sense Out of Color Theory by Stephen Quiller and Painting Better Landscapes by Margaret Kessler. All three will help a lot if you are trying to learn more about color.