Making Color Sing: Practical Lessons in Color and Design [Hardcover]

Jeanne Dobie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1986

Through clear, illuminating exercises, this brilliant book explores new ways to think about color, generating responses that unlock personal creativity and allows artists to express themselves with paint as never before.
In thirty-one practical and stimulating lessons, author Jeanne Dobie offers insights into ways to use both color and composition to make paintings come alive.

Lessons include:
Creating with a Personal Palette
Achieving Luminous Grays
Mixing Powerful Color
Making Color Pulsate
Invoking Visual Tension
Weaving Color Through Space
Designing with Vibrating Color
Planning the Color Design
Making Shapes Dynamic
Transforming a Painting with Glazes

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeanne Dobie is a nationally recognized artist. Known for her fresh approach to color and design, she has conducted workshops throughout the United States and Europe. Dobie is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and is an elected member of both the American Watercolor Society and the National Watercolor Society. Her work is represented in many collections, including the collection of the Frye Museum in Seattle. She has served as juror for national exhibitions, including the American Watercolor Society.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill; 1st edition (January 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082302993x
• ISBN-13: 978-0823029938
• ASIN: 082302993X
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-Read for any watercolorist, May 13, 2004

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Making Color Sing (Paperback)

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.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bible of watercolor books, July 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Making Color Sing: Practical Lessons in Color and Design (Hardcover)

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.

40 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Book is Excellent But Needs Updating, June 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Making Color Sing (Paperback)

Jeanne Dobie's book was recommended in the watercolor class I took and at first when I looked at the pictures I was not interested as I do not care for Dobie's style as illustrated in the book and would never buy the book based on her work. However, after borrowing the teacher's copy I began reading the text and found the information valuable and useful after trying the suggested exercises. Dobie's book along with Tom Hill's The Watercolorist's Complete Guide to Color combine as excellent references for learing to use color pigments and making colors "sing" instead of making mud.

I am giving Dobie's book 1 instead of 5 stars as it seriously needs updating considering some of the pigments Dobie uses are not lightfast and the inclusion of more modern pigments that replace these non-lightfast pigments would be useful all considering the book was first published in 1986, which is 18 years ago. The lightfast references I am going by are Hilary Page and Michael Wilcox's books analyizing watercolor pigments.

Aside from Dobie's use of some outdated pigments (see handprint.com) the book is an excellent reference and her advice as to color mixing valuable.