Color Harmony in your Paintings

by Margaret Kessler

Instill more emotion in your paintings through Color HarmonyColor is one of the most powerful tools an artist can use to capture a mood or express an emotion. However, it can also be intimidating. In Color Harmony in Your Paintings, artist and teacher Margaret Kessler takes a friendly approach to help you understand and apply the principles of color to greatly improve your work.Through clear, instructive illustrations and painting examples, you'll learn how to use color to create expressive moods, unity, rhythm and eye-catching designs as well as heighten the impact of your paintings. No matter what your skill level, you'll find encouraging guidance for using color in any medium.Kessler also provides many finished works and four oil demos making specific points about color usage. Once you understand color principles and when, where, why and how to apply these ideas, you will have the tools for building color harmony.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Crafts

307 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2004

Reviews

[Hayley Hu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this book in the local library and I learned so much. Wish I could have known the munsell color wheel earlier.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short work on picking and designing a color palette for your paintings. Covers using the Munsell color wheel, color temperature, receding colors, atmospheric effects and the like. The author uses her own paintings as examples, this makes it easy to see the changes created by switching up your color selections. A decent book on the subject for those who paint traditional landscapes.

Mixing colors is not covered in depth, I recommend Color: A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors if you need more on that subject.

[Cheryl Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent Overview

This is an excellent introduction to color theory, focusing on color harmony in landscape painting. Even though I am not a landscape painter, I still enjoyed this book and learned a great deal. The relevant information is presented clearly and well illustrated.

[Esme Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on colour harmony for the serious painter

I should say serious hobby painter because that’s what I am. Kessler’s principles are relevant to all Painters.I learned a lot. Now the challenge is to take her advice to heart and do better paintings.

[Kaye Caldwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very comprehensive study of colour and ways to harmonise your paintings.
It is a book you go back to many times, learning something new each time.

[alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great starter

Recommend for beginners who are ready to advance into a more complex strategy of theory and artist license. This is a good resource to have.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alot of this info is in painting the elements

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I would have enjoyed this book more if I could relate to the choice of medium. It is a book of color theory and how to use it in your paintings but the author is an oil painter and I just couldn't quite connect to it as I would have liked. No fault of the author, it is just that I am not an oil painter and I didn't realize that it was more geared towards oil painting.

[Matt Laenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Wonderful Art book

This is very instructional book. Enjoyed every minute. I just started painting and I can tell, by the notes and help from this book. I will do so much better, next time

[scherzo♫ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Munsell color wheel

p. 78-79 How light of different times of day affects local color

p. 82 How atmosphere affects color