Making Color Sing (Hardcover)

by Jeanne Dobie (Author) "GETTING to know as much as possible about pigments and their "personalities" is important to any artist, and even more so to a watercolorist..." (more)
Key Phrases: pure pigment palette, gradated glaze, unpainted shapes, Erin Drumhills (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Through clear, illuminating excercises, this best-selling book stimulates new ways to think about color, generating responses that unlock personal creativity and allow artists to express themselves with paint as never before. Readers are shown how the interplay of complementary hues can trigger vibrations; how the push and pull of warm and cool colors can create a feeling of space; how to disguise one color in a scene to accent another; and many more tidbits of colorful advice.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author
Jeanne Dobie, a teacher and painter whose work is shown widely and often wins coveted awards, lives in Pennsylvania.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill (January 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082302993X
• ISBN-13: 978-0823029938
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #663,082 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 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 (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

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.

33 of 35 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.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

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

By A Customer

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.