Color Right from the Start: Progressive Lessons in Seeing and Understanding Color [Hardcover]

Hilary Page (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill (April 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823007510
• ISBN-13: 978-0823007516
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,159,319 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable!, September 9, 2004

By 

Virginia Parra "Virginia" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Color Right from the Start: Progressive Lessons in Seeing and Understanding Color (Paperback)

I'm new to watercolor painting and suffering from the beginner's consequence of too many books and too many paints. I wish I would have bought this book first, much time and $$ would have been saved. Her suggestions for testing each tube of paint to learn unique pigment qualites, pigment colors, color theory, color schemes, primary colors, complements, and optical mixtures have proven invaluable.

The excercises included are easy to follow and serve to instill her unsaid mantra. Learn your paints learn your paints learn your paints! I've had this book for several months - still working through some of her excercises and foresee that I will continue to refer to this book many times in the future.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Possibly the most valuable practical guide on color, September 19, 2004

By 

Daniel - See all my reviews

This review is from: Color Right from the Start: Progressive Lessons in Seeing and Understanding Color (Hardcover)

After reading Hilary Page's book, it occurred to me how painting classes should maybe start with lessons on color rather than charcoal drawing. Her detailed explanation of color is grouped in three main aspects: objective color (measured by instruments), optical color (perceived by eye) and practical color (working with pigments). The theoretical aspects are then proven in practical examples which are also used for demonstrating her watercolor techniques, producing some very pleasing artwork.

Details on pigments are particularly valuable. Pigment properties like clarity, tinting strength, purity, value range, degree of opacity, consistency related to the degree of sediment, wet-on-wet behavior, staining when rewetted etc. will be new to many. Knowing such details will help you prevent some strange "accidents" that can spoil your work.

Rare books on color point out the difference between the pigment-color contrasts and the light-color contrast. Hilary Page is very specific regarding these contrasts: she shows two types of color wheels and two sets of primary and complementary colors. She also explains "spectral reflectance curves" that give us an insight to understanding why printers use "balanced" primary colors.

A book on color naturally requires high quality print without any color distortion and this one doesn't fail here either.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference book., January 28, 2007

By 

Gerry de Jong (Kingston, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Color Right from the Start: Progressive Lessons in Seeing and Understanding Color (Paperback)

As a professional watercolourist with over twenty five years of experience and an advanced understanding of colour I can tell you that this is an excellent reference book. Definitely a great tool for art instructors. Even though the writer sees it as a book for beginners I feel that the complexity of the subject will probably be overwhelming for beginners.