Color and Light for the Watercolor Painter: How to Get the Effects You Want Every Time

by Christopher Schink

Book Overview

A popular teacher takes the confusion out of color theory and demonstrates how to achieve the color and light effects that painters really want to master. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0823006867
• ISBN13: 9780823006861
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill Publications
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.5" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

Not your usual watercolor book--interesting and stimulating

Christoph Schink is an award-winning artist who shares his unique look at the art of watercolor and using color and light. The book does not just deal with juxtapositions of color or of mixing pigments; the author goes into the compositional effects of color choices, with examples of changes if you use value (dark to light, color becomes diminished) or if you use all pastels or colors close in range on the color wheel. In addition, there is a section on how the masters employed color in famous paintings, and a section of example works by other artists. This is valuable--the inclusion of other artists makes the book appealing to a variety of painters; not everyone responds to individual artists, so the wise author of painting books is one who generously shares the canvas with his colleagues. You are guaranteed to find some inspiration in the gallery. This is a nice large format book that shows off the colors on the pages well. Excellent.

They don't get much better than this!

Christopher Schink is a terrific teacher and communicator in this lovely, and invaluable instruction book. Complete with many colorful examples and exercises, this world-class painter uses work from many different exceptional painters, along with a few of his own, to show how wonderfully expressive your own work can be by utilizing some of these techniques. He also shows and shares his deep understanding of what happens to color as it's mixed and layered, etc. And at the bottom of it all is the message that painting is about communication of ideas, and not simply a series of techniques! This core message is the most valuable of all.

It's more that the typical 'technique' book

If you can only buy one water color text book, buy this one. For a change this painter focuses on teaching you more than just tecnical skills. He gives you excellent information on color history, and analysis of other watercolorists work. Deals with problems you may run into and provides great visual examples. Handles subjects like controlling pictoral space, simultaneous contrast, and well as composition and design. This is book to study, not just look at the pictures!

An Inspiration for Effects !

I found this book to be most interesting on the topics of Colour, Tone, etc. Mr Schink goes on to apply the initial principles he outlines at the beginning of his book, to show how different effects and appearances can be created, even from the same basic composition! It was a fascinating read, and provides a good point of reference for me.

Excellent book--I devoured it!

My watercolor instructor brought a copy of this book to class and I fell in love with it. If you want to achieve glowing, luminous color, and aren't getting the effect you're looking for in your watercolor paintings--you need this book. Mr Schink illustrates why leaving white in your painting won't give you a luminous effect, and also shows you how to use color and value to achieve that "glow" which is so characteristic of his work and Skip Lawrence's. If you're a colorist, you will find a lot to like about this book.